Kochi Corporation’s ABC centre to strengthen operations with more staff

The Animal Birth Control centre at Brahmapuram had remained closed for months due to maintenance work before resuming operations in July last year.
| Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT

The Kochi Corporation’s Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre at Brahmapuram will soon be strengthened with additional veterinary surgeons, animal handlers, para-veterinarians, and vehicles for catching stray animals.

Two more veterinary surgeons are to be appointed in addition to the one full-time surgeon and a Corporation surgeon who visits the unit thrice a week. The ABC centre has never had para-veterinarians to assist the surgeons, and the existing six animal handlers had to take turns acting as para-vets as well, which took a heavy toll on their primary task of capturing stray dogs.

“At its current strength, the unit has been conducting five to seven surgeries daily. The addition of more surgeons and para-veterinarians will enable the unit to operate in multiple shifts, increasing the number of daily surgeries to between 15 and 18. Moreover, recruiting para-veterinarians will free up the animal handlers to focus on their primary task,” said Corporation sources.

The opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) has been up in arms accusing the Corporation of not thinking beyond the single ABC unit, despite the plan fund allocation for two units. “The Corporation has only one vehicle for capturing strays for the entire 74 wards. Despite recent reports of 12 stray dog bites across the Fort Kochi, Ayyappankavu and South Kaloor divisions, the Corporation has remained apathetic to such a serious issue,” said M.G. Aristotle, UDF parliamentary party secretary.

An animal handler, on condition of anonymity, said that they were often bogged down by assisting surgeons to compensate for the absence of para-vets. The decision to deploy two additional vehicles is expected to increase the daily capture of stray dogs from the current seven to 10. At present, there is no point in capturing more dogs considering the limited number of daily surgeries possible with the existing staff strength.

The addition of vehicles will enable multiple shifts for dog capturing addressing the current backlog of 100 complaints caused by the single morning shift.

The ABC centre had remained closed for months due to maintenance work before resuming operations in July last year. Its functioning was also disrupted for months when the vehicle used for capturing dogs and bringing them to the centre was taken off the road for periodic fitness tests.