Early Times Report
Jammu, May 11: BJP state president Ravinder Raina's instruction to his party councillors representing various wards of Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) to pay attention to basic needs of the people has failed to strike a chord with many Jammuites.
The people who spoke to Early Times on Saturday, a day after Raina asked the councillors to "give individual attention to all the basic needs of public like electricity, drinking water supply," dismissed his statement as "just lip service" because he and his councillors "don't want to do anything about these issues."
"If the BJP leader and his councillors had been serious and sincere towards solving the basic needs of the people, the city would not have been facing the menace of stray dogs," said Ajay Gupta, a grocery store owner in the city.
The stray dogs, Gupta said, have become a nuisance particularly in posh Gandhi Nagar, where an army of canines can be seen marching round-the-clock through the streets.
Ravinder Raina has said that Jammu being the centre point of all the social and economical activities in the region, as such, all eyes are on the city's infrastructure, development, maintenance etc, for which JMC and its elected councillors have to assume a greater role.
"When they were in the government, the BJP legislators from Jammu did little for the Jammu people. The Jammuites gave them another chance when they voted for the party in the civic election. But the party councillors proved no better than their former legislators," said Suresh Doga, also a trader.
"Now when they are out of power, Raina has woken up from the slumber and is showing false concern for the city. It's just lip service, nothing else. Raina and his councillors appear deaf to the dog menace that has assumed alarming proportions while the JMC authorities have time and again ignored people's protests," Dogra said.
Notably, stray dogs have unleashed a reign of terror in the city. At the receiving end are mostly elderly persons and children. The aged persons especially those who visit Gole Market and Green Belt Park for morning and evening walk are a terrified lot.
The canines have been attacking school-going children and chasing the two wheelers, resulting into accidents. The local residents had urged the Mayor of JMC to organise a special drive to check the menace of stray dogs, but to no avail.
Three years ago, the JMC had conducted a survey to find the number of stray dogs in Jammu. The survey found that nearly 60,000 strays dogs are roaming freely on the streets of Jammu city and only few thousands (3,000 to be precise) were sterilised.
Last year, the authorities of JMC had announced that an independent survey would be conducted through a private agency and thereafter sterilisation process would be initiated. Nothing has been done, though. |
