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5 days ago
- General
- First Post
How much will it cost to house Delhi's nearly 10 lakh stray dogs?
The Supreme Court on Thursday (August 14) reserved its order on pleas challenging its August 11 order to pick up and relocate all stray dogs in Delhi and NCR. If the apex court upholds its previous directive, an estimated 10 lakh stray canines in the national capital will have to be shifted to shelters. What will be the cost to move them? Does the city have that kind of money? A stray dog captured by New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) sits in a cage in a van during a sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination operation in New Delhi on December 21, 2017. File Photo/AFP The Supreme Court on Thursday (August 14) reserved its order on pleas challenging its earlier directive to round up and relocate all stray dogs in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). A three-judge bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria did not grant a stay on the August 11 order of another bench to municipal authorities. 'Everyone who has come to intervene must take responsibility,' Justice Nath orally observed. The bench also asked all intervenors to file affidavits with supporting evidence. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD If the apex court upholds the August 11 order to relocate stray dogs to shelters, how much will it cost? We will explain. The August 11 SC order on stray dogs On Monday (August 11), a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan ordered the Delhi government, civic bodies and authorities of Noida, Gurgaon, and Ghaziabad to start picking up the stray canines and shift them to shelters. The top court directed the creation of dog shelters to initially accommodate around 5,000 stray dogs, which should be sterilised and immunised. Its directive came in a suo motu case. The apex court gave authorities eight weeks to create the facilities and install CCTV monitoring to ensure no animals are released back to the streets. The New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) catches a stray dog during a sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination operation in New Delhi on December 21, 2017. File Photo/AFP It also warned that any person or organisation that obstructs the move will face strict action. The order came amid a rise in dog bites and cases of rabies. Delhi recorded 26,334 dog bite cases so far this year, compared to 68,090 cases in 2024, PTI reported, citing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) data. The Supreme Court's order divided the country, with many animal lovers, including politicians and celebrities, criticising the ruling. How much will it cost to relocate stray dogs in Delhi? Delhi is estimated to have 10 lakh stray dogs. If the Supreme Court rules in favour of their relocation to shelters, it could prove quite costly. Cash-strapped MCD will have to set aside around Rs 11 crore every day to feed and care for the canines, Hindustan Times (HT) reported, citing the civic body's preliminary assessment. According to officials, at least Rs 110 per day will have to be spent on food, transport, cleaning, medical care, staff, and utilities for each dog. Animal activists predict that housing so many dogs could cost the Delhi government a whopping Rs 10,000 crore — money it does not have. 'First, the government will have to find 1,000, or maybe 2,000, centres because you can't put so many dogs together — they'll fight. So they'll need to find land first. Then, building each centre would cost at least Rs 4-5 crore, since every facility will require caretakers, feeders, and watchmen,' a dog lover told PTI. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD They also dismissed the directive of the apex court to relocate the stray dogs, calling it 'illogical, illegal, impractical, and inhumane.' The dog lover also said it is impossible to shift lakhs of dogs. Currently, MCD rounds up and sterilises over 350 canines daily, releasing them after an observation period of 10 days. The sterilisation process costs about Rs 1,000 per dog. How MCD could implement SC order on stray dogs MCD officials have started mulling locations where shelters for stray dogs can be built in Delhi. An 80-acre plot at Ghogha Dairy for a large shelter, along with other places such as Dwarka Sector 29, is being considered, reported HT. The Supreme Court's final order will determine the scale of relocation of the canines. 'If all dogs have to be relocated, resources can never be practically sufficient,' another civic official told the newspaper. Delhi has not conducted a fresh census of the stray dog population for 16 years. To not carry out enumeration and improve tracking, the civic body is planning to microchip dogs brought to shelters and sterilised. The chips, costing up to Rs 200 each, would contain about five data points, including the canine's history, vaccination, and sterilisation details. Handheld scanners needed for the process could be priced at Rs 4,000 per piece. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
Time of India
19-06-2025
- Time of India
Elderly bookstore owner in Delhi loses Rs 15 lakh in fake electricity bill scam
New Delhi: An 80-year-old owner of a bookstore in New Delhi's Connaught Place lost Rs 15 lakh after falling victim to an elaborate cyber scam in which he was threatened by the fraudster that the power supply to his establishment would be cut. The fraud happened on June 16 when the elderly man got a WhatsApp call from a person posing as an official of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC). The caller alleged that the electricity bill was not paid for a significant period. He issued a stern warning that power to the shop would be disconnected within 30 minutes unless immediate payment was made. The victim, a resident of Jor Bagh, Lodhi Road, was working in his shop in Connaught Place when the call came. It made him anxious. "Thereafter, while I was still on the WhatsApp call, I received a link to an invoice for Rs 12 on my WhatsApp. I was extremely frightened and overwhelmed by his threatening tone and urgent demands, which compelled me to click on the link to pay the bill immediately. However, I informed him that I do not use any form of netbanking or UPI applications for making payments. In response, he insisted that I provide my credit or debit card details instead. Feeling intense pressure and fear due to his persistent and intimidating behaviour, I reluctantly shared my bank credit card information with him," the complainant said. Within minutes of the call ending, his phone was bombarded with transaction alerts showing unauthorised debits amounting to nearly Rs 15.45 lakh from his bank account. Realising the enormity of the breach, the victim immediately contacted his bank, requesting a freeze on his credit card and account to prevent further losses. On June 17, the victim lodged a complaint at Connaught Place police station.
Hindustan Times
17-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Blue signs given the green signal in Lutyens' Delhi
Lutyens' Delhi is set to change colour ; all road signs in the 42.7 sq km part of the Capital that houses offices and residences of top functionaries and officials of the executive, legislature and judiciary are to now have a blue background, with white lettering, in keeping with norms laid down by the Indian Roads Congress, according to people familiar with the matter. According to the guidelines issued by the national body which prescribes design standards for roads, green signboards of the sort currently found in the area, which is under the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), are to be used only on state and national highways. The signboards in the NDMC area are green, with names written in white in English, Hindi, Urdu and Gurmukhi. The council will also rectify any mistakes and add around 100 new signs to indicate schools, hospitals and community spaces. Other parts of Delhi, where roads come under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and state Public Works Department (PWD), already have blue signboards. The project to install around 6,500 blue signboards is likely to cost around ₹18 crore and will begin in October. A senior NDMC official said preparatory work for the project was recently completed after approvals were secured from the council members of the civic body. 'We will begin this project after the monsoon is over, around October, and the deadline of March 2026 has been fixed for its completion. We normally start the road repair works after the monsoon rains and this project is likely to be run in parallel with road re-carpeting and repair work,' the official added, asking not to be named. NDMC manages 1,298km of roads in Central Delhi, along with 52 roundabouts where 6,439 road signs are currently in place. Apart from colour, some of these signboards also differ from those in the rest of the city in terms of shape; NDMC signboards are both circular and rectangular; in the rest of the city, the boards are rectangular. CHECK The last major street sign replacement program was executed by the civic body in 2009-10 in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Since then, many of the boards have faded. NDMC vice chairman Kuljeet Chahal said that a series of initiatives are being taken by the council to improve the road infrastructure as well as street furniture in the New Delhi area under which signage will also be soon upgraded. S Velmurugan, chief scientist and head of traffic engineering and safety division of Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), said that road signs, their colour and shapes play an important role in road safety and such glaring deviation should not have been allowed. 'According to the Indian Road Congress (IRC) guidelines,signboards with blue background are meant for urban roads and green boards are used for state and national highways. There are no highways in the Lutyens' Delhi area. The informatory signs are for making commuters aware that they are on a highway or in an urban environment.' He added that rectangular signs are informative in nature and provide details like road names. The triangular signs are cautionary in nature and indicate upcoming curves or signals, and the circular signs are regulatory in nature. Besides colour, the replacement should also weed out other flaws.' Velumurgan said that normally the triangular and circular boards should have no coloured background as per IRC guidelines except in certain circumstances like construction zones and blue background in case of no parking zones. A second NDMC official, aware of the matter, said that the survey of all signs in New Delhi was completed by the executive engineers of the road division in 2024 and an approval from the council was secured last year. 'All signage in the NDMC area will be designed through a software for uniformity and consistency as per IRC guidelines.' He added that the corporation will reuse the frames of signs that are in good shape. According to civic officials, the change was supposed to take place ahead of the G20 summit in 2023 but the project was delayed. In the annual budget for 2024-25, presented in December last year, the NDMC chairman stated that road signages were 'installed mainly in 2009-10 with reflective sheets and have outlived their life.' He added: 'Indian Roads Congress has revised the specifications with reflective sheets. To achieve proper safety, it is proposed to replace road signages in the NDMC area in next 2024-25.' The project has finally secured the green signal now.
Time of India
16-05-2025
- Time of India
It's no monkey business: HC seeks answers from govts on simian crisis
Ghaziabad: A college student from Sanjay Nagar got multiple stitches after she was attacked by a monkey earlier this year. Another woman, a Raj Nagar resident, spent over Rs 1 lakh to repair the electrical wiring after a group of monkeys raided her house when she went to meet her son in the US last Dec. Man-monkey conflicts are many and frequent in Delhi-NCR. In 2014, New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) had to hire 40 men in ape suits to drive away monkeys from the parliament complex—a decision that inspired an OTT series 'Mamla Legal Hai'. But 11 years later, nothing has changed, except for the simian population. On May 6, Allahabad high court issued notices to Animal Welfare Board of India, ministry of environment, forest and climate change, UP govt and others on the rising population of monkeys, increasing man-monkey conflict , hunger and loss of food to monkeys, their starvation and cruel/inhuman conditions the monkeys are living in. The court directed the central and state govts to explain by July 10 what are the steps in place to deal with monkey menace and what action plan is proposed in that regard. The division bench comprising chief justice Arun Bhansali and justice Kshitij Shailendra also issued notices to the UP state animal welfare board, Ghaziabad district magistrate, GMC, nagar palika parishads of Loni, Modinagar, Muradnagar, Khoda Makanpur, society for prevention of cruelty to animals and Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) in the matter. It was hearing a PIL filed by BTech student Prajakta Singhal and social worker Vineet Sharma, both from Ghaziabad, seeking directions for preparing an urgent action plan, infirmaries, veterinary care centres, transport and rescue vans, provisions of food and setting up a 24X7 grievance helpline portal to tackle money menace. It also sought a direction to the govt agencies to capture and relocate monkeys to forests or forest-like setup in Ghaziabad. Sharma said monkey attacks increase during summer when there is a dearth of food and water in the habitats where they usually live. "People can't go for walks in parks, and children cannot play in school playgrounds out of fear of being attacked by monkeys," Sharma said. The petitioners said repeated appeals to the local municipal bodies and animal welfare board went unheard, prompting them to seek judicial intervention. Appearing for the petitioners, counsel Akash Vashishtha said there was an urgent need to acknowledge the issue as a problem, and only then could certain SOPs be framed. "Through the petition, we extended suggestions about what needs to be done for the welfare of monkeys who are forced to raid human habitations in the absence of food and water," he said. Anirban Roy, a research scholar at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), who studied man-animal conflict, said that two main reasons contribute to the exploding population of monkeys. "On one hand, they are rarely hunted in the wild because even apex predators are not avid climbers. On the other hand, when they venture into human settlements, instead of being driven away, they are fed and revered for socio-religious sentiments," he said. Another problem is the absence of census and population figures, which makes it difficult for local authorities to come up with any plan. Roy explains that since monkeys are not on the IUCN list of endangered species, there is no mechanism for their census over the years.
