In a bid to check the city’s surging stray dog population, the Belagavi City Corporation (BCC) has finalised two locations within municipal limits to construct permanent Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres.
To balance geographical coverage, the civic body will establish one facility in the northern zone and another in the southern zone of the city. Construction is slated to begin shortly, funded via corporators’ reserve allocations. However, authorities have withheld the specific site addresses to prevent potential pushback from local residents.
The decision comes after earlier plans to operate a central facility at Hirebagewadi collapsed due to political resistance. Following objections raised by local corporator and former Health Standing Committee chairperson Lakshmi Rathod, operations at the makeshift shed in Hirebagewadi were halted after running on a limited scale.
At present, the civic body manages only 8 to 10 sterilisation procedures daily. With permanent facilities and the imminent onboarding of a new agency, BCC aims to more than double this capacity to over 20 surgeries per day.
Official estimates indicate that Belagavi is home to nearly 20,000 stray canines. While birth control drives have existed since 2007, officials acknowledge that sporadic execution has allowed numbers to climb unchecked.
Under increasing pressure to align with Supreme Court mandates, corporation authorities maintain that dedicated, permanent infrastructure is critical to running an uninterrupted, long-term sterilisation drive.
