India, Aug. 15 -- A veritable firestorm has broken out over the recent order of the Supreme Court to gather stray dogs in the Delhi-NCR region (estimated at between 500,000 to one million), and put them in designated shelters within eight weeks. The author has nothing to add to the debate over the ethics and justice of the controversy. The first thing that came to many discerning minds was: a large section of bureaucrats, municipal councillors, contractors and perhaps even a few MLAs must be celebrating a new financial bonanza bestowed by the SC.

How so? Well, the economics is simple. Millions will be spent on building the dog shelters. One can simply take a guess how much is likely to be pocketed through rent-seeking mechanisms. People ...