The District Panchayat has taken steps to formulate a policy regarding the sterilization and vaccination of stray dogs. This initiative will be initiated by presenting a proposal at Wednesday’s board meeting. At the meeting, the District Panchayat will request guidelines from the government and the creation of a Special Operations (SOP) in this regard. The Dehradun District Panchayat will be the first district panchayat to initiate a policy regarding stray dogs.
The menace of stray and pet dogs is not limited to cities but also rural areas. On September 21st, a pet Rottweiler severely injured a woman in Bidholi Amwala Okhal village. When the Municipal Corporation team investigated, it was determined that the incident occurred outside the municipal jurisdiction.
In such a situation, any action required would be taken at the Gram Panchayat level or the relevant police station, but no action was taken at the Gram Panchayat level. The reason behind this was that, unlike the Municipal Corporation, no policy had been developed at the Gram Panchayat level for dog control and management.
Urban bodies have the power to impose fines and register dogs.
Urban bodies have their own dog policy. Under this policy, they are responsible for sterilizing stray dogs and registering pet dogs with the body. Furthermore, the Municipal Corporation has the power to impose fines for failing to register, leaving dogs unattended, failing to vaccinate, and failing to sterilize them. Furthermore, the corporation has also established fines for open defecation. The Dehradun Municipal Corporation recently passed a resolution in its board meeting, increasing the registration fees and fines.
The 2025-26 budget has already been passed.
When the financial year began, the second board was in place. Therefore, the 2025-26 budget was presented in the last board meeting before the elections. The budget for total income and expenditure of approximately ₹61.72 crore was approved in that meeting.
The District Panchayat will create space to increase income.
A target has been set to increase the income of the District Panchayat. To increase the income, the officials have prepared proposals to build shopping complexes and wedding points on the valuable vacant lands of the District Panchayat. A proposal will be placed to build shopping complexes on the 294 square meter land of the District Panchayat located at Raipur Chowk in the city, 230 square meter land located at Natthanpur Chowk, and 186 square meter land in Majra. Apart from these, there is a plan to place proposals worth about Rs 15 crore including building commercial buildings like hotels etc. on about four bighas of land of the District Panchayat located on Rishikesh-Shyampur bypass.
