1.5 lakh pet dogs in Ahmedabad, but AMC has no record to establish ownership

AHMEDABAD: In Ahmedabad, one can keep pitbulls or rottweilers, known for their ferocity and bite force, and if one of these goes rogue and injures citizens, the owner can get away saying there is no way to establish the animal’s ownership.

The city has an estimated 1.5 lakh pet dogs of various breeds and aggression levels, according to leading canine clubs in the city, but the civic authority does not maintain any records of them, simply because rules of pet ownership and registration have not been framed.In India, 11 megacities maintain pet records.
Even Gujarat cities such as Vadodara and Surat have systems for registering pet dogs, but the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), the largest civic body in the state and one of the oldest in the country, has not yet framed these rules. Strangely, the AMC’s cattle nuisance control department (CNCD) says on its website that it issues “pet permits”.
“This must be an old typo on the portal. The AMC does not have any system or framed rules to register pet dogs,” said a senior AMC official, adding that because of this, the civic body does not have any data on pets in the city.
Estimates by players in the pet industry suggest that Ahmedabad has around 1.5 lakh pets dogs.
“There was a proposal in 2014 to frame laws and make registration of pets mandatory. However, no work was done on it. The proposal was revived in 2016, but there was a lot of opposition from the political wing, so it has been shelved,” the official said. The 2016 proposal required pet owners to maintain record of vaccination, health history and even purchase documents.
“This proposal was opposed as councillors argued that many people get pets as gifts from friends and relatives, and in such case providing details of the original pet vendor would be difficult,” the AMC official said.
Nitingiri Goswami, secretary of Ahmedabad Canine Club, said, “Unless there are efforts to make rules as exist in other cities and to spread awareness, on things like the advantages of registering as pet-parents, people will remain reluctant.”
“Mumbai’s civic authority conducted a door-to-door survey of registered pet-owners. It also imposed fines of Rs 500 on those not registering pets. The importance of having a database is that they can help trace pets if they get lost or meet with accidents,” said Salomi Gupte, an Ahmedabad-based canine behaviourist.