Srinagar, Sept. 1 -- After a halt of nine months, the dog sterilisation and vaccination programme has restarted in Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar which has been reeling under an increasing stray dog population with official data revealing over 14,500 dog bite cases in the past 28 months in the Valley. The Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) restarted the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme earlier this month after it was stopped in November last year owing to winter. It was supposed to start in March this year but lack of response to the tenders for the sterilisations further delayed the programme. Officials of the SMC said that the programme has now started and they would be sterilising 21,000 dogs in coming months. Faizil Bashir Rather, municipal veterinary officer, said that SMC's ABC and anti-rabies vaccination programme has started in all the 35 administrative wards of Srinagar. "The SMC has to perform over 21,000 dog sterilisations, vaccinations and dewormings in 16 months," Rather said. The ABC was started in Kashmir in 2013 with one centre in Srinagar's Shuhama which has 50 kennels where the authorities would sterilise just 5-10 dogs per day making miniscule impact to control the spiraling population of dogs particularly in the city which the officials put anywhere between 50,000 to 60,000. After the second ABC centre was opened in 2023 at Tengpora on an area of 7 kanals with 210 kennels, the authorities have been able to perform 60-70 sterilisations per day. "We have a target of around 1,350 dogs (sterilisations and vaccinations) for a month which is 52 dogs per day," Rather said. The work is usually handed over to an expert agency that provides the manpower and expertise in catching, sterilising and dropping back the canines in their respective areas. Rather said that they have digitised the process this year with real time information about the dog catchings and sterilisations. "This programme is being digitally monitored through myjammu app of the housing and urban development department which records catching of dogs with geotagged photos and then these details are recorded in the app and a unique ID is generated of the dog. Then this dog reaches the ABC facility in Tengpora where again a geo-tagged photo is recorded," he said. Every year, the Valley witnesses 5,000-6,000 dog bite cases mostly among children and elderly. Data provided by Government Medical College, Srinagar, said that Kashmir valley recorded 14,575 dog bite cases at anti-rabies clinic of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar from April 1, 2023, to August 12, 2025, (5,200 cases in 2023-2024, 6,205 cases in 2024-2025 and 3,170 cases so far in 2025-26). From April 2018 to March 2023, the Kashmir valley has witnessed 37,467 animal bite cases, 72% or 26,742 of them in Srinagar alone. "After dog sterilisation and vaccination, the aggression of dogs gets mitigated. And there are minimum chances of dog bites," Rather said. In April 2021, the SMC authorities had said that they would launch a massive time-bound animal birth control programme to sterilise and vaccinate around 50,000 stray dogs within six months in accordance with the guidelines of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and the Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rules, 2001. But that did not happen on the ground and mass sterilisations started only as late as summer of 2023 after the inauguration of Tengpora centre."In the first phase we sterilised 14,000 dogs and vaccinated 15,000 dogs," SMC official said....