Explained: Why birth control of strays failed so badly

Aug 16, 2025 | 19:38 IST

A child plays with a stray dog in New Delhi on Aug 13 (PTI Photo)

India has spent 60 years trying to curb stray dog numbers, yet the street population has exploded. TOI looks at what drove this failure

Thirty years after it opened its first free sterilisation clinic for animals in Chennai in 1966, Blue Cross India — an animal welfare charity — managed to convince the Chennai Municipal Corporation to start an animal birth control (ABC) programme. This worked so well that the Centre made it a national programme in 2001. But we all know how it panned out: the population of strays continued to grow in many states; dog bite cases surged; the crisis only deepened.

“The programme lacks funding and manpower, including vets, as well as infrastructure,” said former World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan. Unlike health programmes, such as tuberculosis control or blindness control, this programme does not hold anyone accountable. “There is no collective national data on the number of vaccinations, number of surgeries, or its effectiveness. There are no outcome studies to show if funds were judiciously used,” she said.

TOI

TOI

Explained: Why birth control of strays failed so badly

India has spent 60 years trying to curb stray dog numbers, yet the street population has exploded. TOI looks at what drove this failure

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TOI

Explained: Why birth control of strays failed so badly

India has spent 60 years trying to curb stray dog numbers, yet the street population has exploded. TOI looks at what drove this failure

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