Strays make municipality office unreachable

The situation is worse in Chromepet New Colony, Kakanam Colony, Chambers Lane, Nehru Nagar, Keelkatalai, Hastinapuram and Pallavaram. The residents said that the dogs do not allow anybody to walk on the streets, especially after nightfall. Motorists are also afraid to ride on certain streets as dogs start chasing them. “Afraid of the dogs, delivery agents various online portals refuse to come to Pallavaram after sunset. Even autorickshaw drivers sometimes refuse to ply on certain streets,” said Saravanan, a resident of New Colony.

Members of various residents’ welfare associations said that they have asked the municipality to take action and control the dogs but no action has been taken yet. The residents claimed that they cannot even go inside the municipality office as several dogs are resting at the office.

V Santhanam, a social activist from Chromepet said that the municipality should take action to control the dogs. “Roadside foods stalls have led to an increase in the population of dogs. They are throwing food waste on the road,” he said.

Sanitary officer of Pallavaram Municipality R Selvaraj said, “We are taking steps to control the stray population. We used to catch nearly 70 dogs and sterilise them and also inject anti-rabies vaccine. Then we leave them at the place where we caught them as per the rule. Most of the dogs were caught from Tiruneermalai, Moovarasanper and Nanmangalam,” he said.