Delhi Mayor Iqbal Singh welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to transfer stray dogs to the shelter sites of Delhi-NCR and assured that the administration would implement the order within the next six weeks.
Talking to ANI, Iqbal Singh said, “I welcome the order of the Supreme Court, because the people of Delhi were facing a lot of problems. We will try our best to implement this order in the next 6 weeks.”
On the other hand, animal rights activists have highlighted the ‘eternality’ of this decision in view of the lack of animal shelters in the national capital.
Animal rights activist and BJP leader Maneka Gandhi pointed out the lack of facilities to implement this order. He insisted that the government needs at least 3000 shelter sites and more than 1.5 lakh cleaning employees to move dogs.
Maneka Gandhi told ANI, “There is not a single government shelter home in Delhi. How many shelter homes will you keep 3 lakh dogs? You do not have a single one. To build these shelter homes you will have to spend at least 15 thousand crores. You have to find 3000 shelter homes in the places where no one lives.”
He asked, “How will you find so many places? It cannot be done in two months. You have to appoint 1.5 lakh people only as a sweeper, which will also cost crores of rupees.”
However, Delhi’s Mayor is optimistic and has assured that the government may arrange temporary or permanent shelters.
He said, “We do not have a shelter home, but we have 10 current sterilization centers. We can build a temporary and permanent shelter home. MCD and Delhi government will ensure that no one has trouble due to stray dogs.”
Maneka Gandhi said that this order is not “working” and it is given due to “anger” towards dogs, which reflects the lack of sensitivity.
He said, “This is not a practical order. It is a very strange decision given by an angry person. Angry decisions are never intelligent. The Mayor says that he can do this in six weeks; let them try. There is not a single shelter home where they can take dogs?”
Last night, animal rights activists, rescuers, carers and dog lovers protested against the Supreme Court order at India Gate. However, the police immediately stopped him and took him into custody.
A person taking care of the dogs said that we do not want to talk by the police on a protest against the Supreme Court order, “they don’t want to talk. These people are putting everyone in jail. I am being detained because I do noble jobs to feed animals.”
Earlier on Monday, a bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan said that all areas should be freed from stray dogs and there should be no compromise. The bench also clarified that no animal caught would be released back to the streets.
It also ordered contempt action against any person or organization that tries to stop the authorities from running the occupation campaign.
