Woof, woof, woof ... we are CMC dogs!

BANGALORE: Woof, woof, says this stray dog. The BCC team keenly peers at it to ascertain whether it is a namma Bengaluru dog.
But the four-legged creature gives a polite woof, extends its paw and says: "Hello, I''m a CMC dog."
The team is in a dilemma: Do they sterilise it or not? Has it strayed into the BCC limits? If so, they can neuter it. Does it have one paw in the CMC (city municipal council) limits? If yes, they can''t sterilise it.
The dog, of course, can''t read the rule book.So it cheerfully comes and goes crossing the borderline.
It is these ‘borderline'' cases that are giving the officials a headache.
Though the city is expanding, the BCC''s jurisdiction is not. So, they often get complaints from the peripheral areas like the Electronics City about the dog menace. But they are helpless as those areas come under the CMCs.
Not just these suburbs, even the city''s residents from HAL III Stage, Gayatrinagar, Chandra Layout, Magadi Road and C V Raman Nagar complain that every day they are woken up by the loud barks of the CMC dogs.
The BCC, of course, claims it is making every effort to sterilise even CMC dogs which stray into the city limits.
Actually, the BCC''s Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme has registered a 21 per cent dip in the city''s canine population from the time it was launched four years ago. For, even as the BCC pegs the city''s existing dog population at 56,000, there is this invasion by CMC dogs.
The ‘ABC'' of it is that the BCC can do little to check the ‘other'' dogs, other than advising the CMCs to implement similar sterilisation programmes.
The CMC strays are quite happy with the urban life: they get enough to feed on, on the mounting garbage.
"We have our target schedule to execute the sterilisation programme in the designated wards. The overall problem cannot be resolved if the issue of garbage is not addressed," says animal welfare activist Poornima Harish, trustee, Animal Rights Fund.
These groups, however, are bound by the rule book.
"Animal welfare groups coordinating ABC programmes in the city receive distress calls from IT hubs all the time, but we cannot operate outside BCC limits," says Suparna Ganguly, vice-president, CUPA.
Dr Nanjunda Reddy, in charge of BCC''s ABC programme, says: "The BCC has shot off letters to all the seven CMC officials to implement a similar birth control programme in their jurisdiction. The CMCs are at it." Some CMCs have called for tenders in this regard.
M R Ramanna, CMC''s project director, District Urban Development Cell, said: "Inspection of animal shelters run by animal welfare groups who have applied for tenders, is on. We are yet to finalise the sanctions. We will do it soon."
Last heard, CMC dogs were planning a ‘tail-down'' strike against the CMC''s move!