Dog poop raises a stink at Lake authorities

KOLKATA: A poop problem is dogging the urban development department these days.
From puppies to pooches and Alsatians to Golden Retrievers, dogs of every shape and size are fouling in public places like Rabindra Sarovar, giving the department and related organizations a headache. For, dog poop has become a stumbling block for morning walkers. While burning the midnight oil for ways to prevent the canines from dropping excreta on the city's greens, the department has even turned to President Obama's governance for reference.
Unable to get to the bottom of the problem, principal secretary (urban development) Debashis Sen, who recently visited Harvard University for some training, looked up Uncle Sam's ways of handling dog fouling.Sen's department, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Kolkata Improvement Trust (KIT) which is in charge of Rabindra Sarovar's upkeep have also met aggrieved morning walkers and conducted internal meetings to sort out the issue.
During some of these sessions, it was pointed out that the US had stringent rules under a specific Act that "requires anyone in control of a dog to clean up immediately after his pet fouls on any land which is open to the air and to which the public are entitled or permitted to have access".
The brainstorming began two months ago when morning walkers started voicing their protests against dog-keepers taking their pets out during morning walks. "Our beloved Lake has become a huge open-air toilet for dogs. The problem is an age-old one, but of late things have come to a head as some senior citizens have slipped on the dog mess and even fallen down. That's when we decided to take up the issue," Sumita Banerjee of Lake Lovers' Forum told TOI.
The forum put up a notice board barring dogs from the Lake complex. It was, however, removed by KIT. Apparently, a similar notice had been issued by KIT in the 1950s, but the agency was unable to track the prohibitory rules and decided to remain a mute spectator. "We couldn't have taken sides for any particular section of Lake users," said Sudhin Nandy, KIT's executive engineer and in-charge of Rabinda Sarovar. Finally, a sub-section under KMC's animals and birds rules was traced; it authorized the civic body to mount a notice board stopping the menace.
One of the morning walkers, former police commissioner Tushar Talukdar, said: "The dogs should be stopped immediately. They are not only polluting the place but some of these dogs also look quite threatening. No civil society will allow such nuisance in a public place."
Television personality Madhumanti Maitra, who walks her pets Burima and Elsa (both Golden Retrievers), found the idea ridiculous. "I don't think KMC or KIT would have bothered to get into all this unless some people with vested interests raked up the issue."
She did like the idea of dog owners carrying a plastic bag and a trowel to pick up released by their pet dogs (like they did in the West), but asked a pertinent question: "Where do we take the dogs then? They must use open space as toilets. Are the authorities trying to stop us from keeping dogs? I think the whole thing is draconian. What about human faeces and people randomly urinating in the Lake complex?" Maitra's plea to KMC: "Please don't take it out on the poor dogs."
The decision might be adopted by Bidhannagar Municipality because some residents have raised similar objections for parks in the township.
One such deputation by the residents of Falguni Abasan reads: "Due to stooling (sic) by the dogs here and there in the park is very unhygienic and the dried stools may cause infection for humans."