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| Srinagar has 64,000 stray dogs, authorities struggle to contain surge | | | Sanjay Pandita
Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 23: Srinagar's stray dog population has surged to a scale that authorities themselves admit they are struggling to control, with the government now conceding in the Legislative Assembly that existing infrastructure is inadequate to deal with the crisis.
A scientific survey conducted in 2023 estimated 64,416 stray dogs within the limits of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation — a figure the government has formally acknowledged as a major public health challenge.
The Jammu Municipal Corporation, meanwhile, has sterilised more than 50,000 dogs since 2014, underlining how widespread the problem is across both cities.
The numbers came to light after JDA MLA Tanvir Sadiq raised questions in the Assembly, seeking details on the stray dog population, dog-bite incidents, sterilisation and vaccination coverage, and the steps being taken to address the issue. In its response, the Housing and Urban Development Department admitted that given the scale and spread of the population across urban areas, the current system needs to be significantly strengthened.
The Srinagar Municipal Corporation carried out the census through an animal welfare organisation accredited by the Animal Welfare Board, using the capture-mark-recapture method combined with the Lincoln-Petersen formula to arrive at the estimate.
Between June 2023 and September 2025, the Srinagar Municipal Corporation sterilised 15,266 stray dogs and administered rabies vaccinations to 15,725 dogs, with the drive run through Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres at Tengpora and Shuhama. However, the government has admitted a critical gap — there is currently no uniform, consolidated ward-wise record of stray dog numbers, sterilisations, vaccinations or dog-bite incidents.
Srinagar currently has two designated Animal Birth Control centres — at Tengpora Bypass and Shuhama — with a combined capacity to house only 121 dogs. Of these, only the Tengpora centre is currently operational. A new 60-kennel facility is under construction at Ahal Chattergam, which will take the city's total capacity to 181 kennels once complete. Even then, the government acknowledges this falls well short of what is needed given the scale and geographical spread of the stray population.
The Jammu Municipal Corporation is running its sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination programme through its centre at Roop Nagar, along with facilities at Bhagwati Nagar and SPCA Chowadi, and is also conducting vaccination camps beyond its own jurisdiction.
Elsewhere in Kashmir, more municipal bodies are ramping up infrastructure. A centre is under construction in Sumbal, with roughly 70 percent of its prefabricated structure complete. In Pulwama, the district administration has transferred five kanals of land to the Municipal Council for a facility in Awantipora. Other municipal bodies are in the process of identifying land and preparing detailed project reports.
The government's proposed plan includes expanding sterilisation centres, strengthening veterinary staff and dog-catching teams, and improving holding, isolation and post-treatment care facilities. Officials are also looking to widen the scope of sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination, introduce scientific identification and record-keeping for treated dogs, set up designated feeding points, and improve solid waste management — seen as a key driver of the stray population, since garbage dumps are a major food source for street dogs.
Veterinarians from the Animal and Sheep Husbandry Department have already been deployed across municipal corporations and councils. Since September 4, 2026, sterilisation surgeries have also begun at the veterinary hospital at the BSF Frontier Headquarters in Humhama, under veterinary supervision.
Dog-bite cases across Jammu and Kashmir are being monitored under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme run by the Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir. The Health and Medical Education Department has been directed to ensure timely treatment and rabies post-exposure prophylaxis at designated health institutions for bite victims. |
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