India, July 13 -- After Sehjeevi, a registered charitable trust working for animal welfare, highlighted the neglect, cruelty, and financial mismanagement at Chandigarh's only government-run animal shelter, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Sector 38 West, on June 25, UT administrator Gulab Chand Kataria paid a surprise visit only to return disappointed. He directed the officials concerned to take immediate steps to upgrade the veterinary services and infrastructure. Last week, the Punjab and Haryana high court directed the Chandigarh administration to urgently improve living conditions for animals in government-run shelters, particularly those temporarily relocated from the SPCA to the municipal corporation's Animal Birth Control (ABC) Centre in remote Raipur Kalan. The court sought the administration's reply by July 29. Sehjeevi Trust head Nikki Latta Gill accused the authorities of reducing the SPCA into a "Society for Promotion of Cruelty to Animals" and added that the plight of the animals worsened since April 29 when renovation plans at the SPCA forced a poorly executed relocation to the defunct Raipur Kalan centre, a temporary neutering facility. Despite an annual budgetary grant of Rs.96 lakh for FY 2023-24 (according to RTI records), the shelter has consistently failed to deliver. "Less than 1% of the funds were allocated to medicines and hospital care, 3% to food, while a whopping 96% of the annual grant went solely to staff salaries," said Gill. MC joint commissioner Himanshu Gupta claimed the facilities were being monitored and arrangements were being made for "walkable space" for dogs in the Raipur Kalan centre after activists raised concerns besides the de-clubbing of SPCA operations and the ABC programme. Since both have different mandates, they need to be managed independently with separate infrastructure and veterinary staff. Clearly, the authorities have been caught on the wrong foot, and this is not the first time mismanagement at the SPCA has come to the fore. As the NGO has demanded, immediate relief measures, including open spaces for confined animals, should be initiated and an independent inquiry must be conducted into the transition and use of funds at the SPCA. Action must be taken against officials responsible. The renovation at the SPCA facility should include putting up CCTVs for transparency. Volunteers should not be excluded from the premises in the interest of animal welfare. In neighbouring Panchkula and Mohali also, it's privately run animal welfare organisations and volunteers that are proactive in providing services, including rescue, veterinary care, adoption, and community outreach. Panchkula-based NGO Animal Welfare Association chairperson Neenu Sodhi says the civic body largely neglects stray animals and instead seeks the AWA's help. She cites lack of support from the government veterinary hospital in Sector 3, which offers no discounts for the treatment of stray dogs. The NGO, which has been running a shelter in Ghazipur for the past six years with limited staff and only one vehicle for rescue, is entirely dependent on donations with no government funding. Mohali deputy commissioner Komal Mittal also admits that the SPCA, which operates from Phase 1, is not as active as the NGOs....