A 100-Year-Old Animal Hospital In Bangalore Is Being Shut Down

The Animal Birth Control Centre (ABC) is run by the Sarvodaya Sevabhavi Samstha and is located in the premises of the Government Veterinary Hospital, Queen’s Road. It sterilises 60-70 dogs a day in a city with increasing stray dogs, and the Bruhad Bengaluru Mahanagara Pallike (BBMP), Municipal Corporation of Bengaluru, is reportedly going to demolish the building and replace it with a multispecialty vet hospital. This move has been met with protest not only because the building, over 100 years old, is a heritage site, but also because this will put a halt to the work of the ABC Unit.

Everyone loves dogs, but stray dogs, without proper caretakers, mean that they grow without vaccination, resulting in aggression and disease. Bangalore Mirror had reported in 2015 that there are over five lakh stray dogs in the city and has only increased over the last two years according to The Hindu. As a result, in 2016, 9905 cases of dog bites were reported involving stray dogs. And with A female dog having the capacity of giving birth to approximated 60,000 puppies in her lifetime under healthy conditions, street dogs came to be looked at as nuisance and the ABC Unit has become increasingly important.

Bengaluru has two fully functioning ABC Units - one run by the Sarvodaya Sevabhavi Samstha on Queen’s Road, catering to the east zone and the other run by the NGO, CUPA (Compassion Unlimited Plus Action) at Vivek Nagar. The Samstha has another centre at Jakkur, but it only carries out the rabies prevention programme. Owing to the deficiency in the ABC Units, BBMP’s decision to demolish the building without allocating a relocation for it’s ABC Unit will be the start of a greater problem.

“Shutting down the ABC centre on Queen’s Road even temporarily, especially at a time when the stray population is exploding, can greatly damage the ABC programme,” said Vinay Morey, the founder trustee at the Samstha, adding, “The authorities have asked us to relocate our Queen’s Road facility to the one in Jakkur. However, this is logically not possible. We cannot cater to the east zone from such a distance. Plus our facility in Jakkur cannot accommodate such a big facility,”

Sarfaraz Khan, joint commissioner (health) at BBMP, has stated that the Samstha has been asked to identify alternated locations for the ABC, and are ready to pay rent even for an year and a half. The Samstha has identified two places in Mahadevapura and Yelahanaka.

Another reason for protest is the demolition of what can be deemed as a heritage building, as it is over a century old. Though the structure is not architecturally significant, is a building of historical value, with its premises housing a large greenspace.

The BBMP has not delivered any form of written communication to the Samstha as of now, but it’s apparently infamous delays has left the Samstha in doubt of whether or not they will be able to relocate to an area that would continue to be effective in sterilisation of dogs.