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Corporation gets tech savvy, uses app to conduct dog census
Four years after the last dog census, the Greater Chennai Corporation is conducting another enumeration of stray dogs in the city, with three zones (Royapuram, Kodambakkam and Adyar) already completed by its two-member teams, through a mobile app and field observations.
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Chennai
In the 2014 census, the Corporation ascertained that there were around 84,000 strays in the city – an exercise which was conducted manually.
This time, the civic body has gone tech-savvy, using a mobile app for better documentation of the city’s stray pooches. “To begin with, we created a customised mobile app for this purpose, with the following categories: male (sterilised/non-sterilised), female (sterilised/non-sterilised/ lactating mothers) and puppies (male/female),” said a Corporation veterinarian.
The modus operandi is simple: a two-member team on a bike (a driver and observer) will cover the route (tracked on the app via GPS) given to them by the Corporation. When they come across a stray dog, they must stop the vehicle, observe the dog from a reasonable distance and select the appropriate category on the app – all of which can be monitored from the headquarters. “If the dog is under the car, the team can lure it out for observation but not otherwise,” said the official.
Before the execution of the project, a pilot was conducted in three divisions of the city by Corporation’s senior veterinarians, to ascertain the challenges on the ground. Then, three zones were selected and health officials (sanitary inspectors) were identified to carry out this exercise. “These officials were given training (at the Corporation’s headquarters of Ripon building and on-field) on using the app and identifying and categorising the dog,” said the official.
The census was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, between 6 am and 11 am, simultaneously in all three zones. “Stray dogs keep to their neighbourhood and since we conducted the census at the same time in the selected locations, the overlapping has been minimised,” added the official.
The Corporation is still analysing the data, using another app and hopes to complete the survey of all 15 zones by end of July. “This will help us identify the hotspots based on population and enable us to organise mass sterilisation and vaccination campaigns,” added the source.
Population in check
Though the census is still in a nascent stage, certain interesting observations have come to fore, said a senior Corporation official. “In the economically-backward or marginalised parts of the city, stray dogs are welcome, because they add that security to the locality. Most of the complaints are from ‘posh’ neighbourhoods, who view these pooches as a nuisance. Based on the census information, Corporation will prepare a strategy to keep the stray dog population in check,” added the senior official.
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