Street dogs in the spotlight as rabies eradication deadline comes closer

For several days in August, street dogs displaced politics and cricket in Indian news headlines. The trigger was the Supreme Court’s orders, which reignited the debate about managing the street dog population, a significant conversation in light of the upcoming 2030 deadline for India to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies, under a national action plan.

The order of August 11, taking suo motu cognisance of a child’s death caused by dogs, directed stray dogs to be picked up from the National Capital Region (NCR) and relocated to shelters. The court directed that these dogs be sterilised, dewormed, and vaccinated in accordance with the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023 and they cannot be released back onto the streets.

Intense debate, including criticism, around the order, followed. About two weeks later, on August 22, a three-judge bench termed the earlier ruling “too harsh” and revised it. The bench ordered that stray dogs be sterilised, dewormed, vaccinated, and then released back to the same areas. Municipal bodies were asked to create designated feeding spaces for stray dogs in every ward. The bench emphasised the need for a balanced approach within the framework of the ABC Rules, 2023.

A long-standing issue

Concerns about free-ranging dogs in India are not new. Mahatma Gandhi once wrote in the Young India magazine, about a century ago, notes: “A roving dog without an owner is a danger to society and a swarm of them is a menace to its very existence… If we want to keep dogs in towns or villages in a decent manner, no dog should be suffered to wander.” His words reflect the uneasy relationship humans have had with street dogs for at least a century, if not longer.

The ABC (Dogs) Rules were first notified in 2001 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. They were revised in 2023 to strengthen the framework. The guidelines follow the Capture–Neuter–Vaccinate–Release (CNVR) approach. They aim to address the stray dog population management through sterilisation and vaccination programmes. The 2023 draft strengthens and formalises the earlier framework. Beyond mandating sterilisation and vaccination, it also discusses standardised protocols, oversight mechanisms, and humane provisions for feeding, among other things.

Beyond this, the centre has issued advisories in 2024 and 2025, urging Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to establish Animal Birth Control units and undertake large-scale sterilisation programmes, covering at least 70% of stray dogs.

Despite these efforts, currently, an estimated 62 million dogs live on Indian streets, many of them unsterilised and unvaccinated.

The health risks are clear. In 2024 alone, there were more than 3.7 million reported dog bites. Officially, around 50 rabies cases were recognised by the government, but independent studies suggest these numbers are underestimated. Rabies kills an estimated 20,000 Indians every year, and about 35% of the victims are children.

In 2021, India launched a National Action Plan for Dog-Mediated Rabies Elimination (NAPRE), which aims to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies by 2030. The country’s commitment aligns with the global “Zero by 30” plan, a joint initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC).

Despite the renewed push, many scientists and practitioners are sceptical that the way India has tackled the dog-related issue will be able to achieve the 2030 target.

“What we really need is vaccination and awareness, which are not happening at the scale required,” says Anindita Bhadra, Professor at the Dog Lab at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, who studies the behavioural ecology of free-ranging dogs. “In terms of animal birth control, we have not achieved much yet. India is a large country with a vast dog population, and reaching 70% sterilisation has not been possible. The process is expensive, needs many people on the ground, and requires strong support systems.”

Abi T. Vanak, Senior Fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), adds that the animal birth control rule in India is treated as a “silver bullet.” “Authorities and many animal birth control advocates present an overly optimistic picture. They call it scientific, but the science behind it is not well established. What exactly do they mean by scientific, and over what time frame?” he asks.

Both researchers emphasise that without systematic planning, reliable data, and large-scale vaccination, sterilisation alone cannot deliver rabies elimination.

Claims of success

Some cities and organisations highlight positive outcomes of sterilisation programmes, mentions the latest Supreme Court order. Animal activists pointed out to the court that the process of sterilisation and inoculation has been successful in cities such as Lucknow and Dehradun.

The organisation Humane World for Animals, working with municipal bodies, claims to have sterilised and vaccinated 83% of Lucknow’s street dogs as of December 2024. “It will take time for the population to decline, but there is a definite change in people’s approach towards dogs,” says Keren Nazareth, Senior Director at the organisation. “Earlier, people were more hostile and called us to remove the dogs. Such calls have gone down.”

In Dehradun, where the group has been active since 2016, Nazareth reports a 40% decline in the street dog population. However, Mongabay India cannot independently verify the claim.

In February, the Animal Welfare Board of India also released a report, highlighting Jodhpur, where street dog density reportedly decreased by 40% within three years of a sterilisation drive and was projected to decrease further with continued effort. In Jaipur, a long-running programme by the NGO Help in Suffering sterilised around 2,500 dogs annually, reducing the street dog population by about 50% between 1997 and 2014. Mumbai was also cited as a city with an active animal birth control programme in the report.

But Vanak is not convinced. “These stories should be studied properly to see what they have achieved and also their sustainability. People once talked about Jodhpur as a success, but that conversation has faded,” he notes. He underlines another argument where people compare India with countries like the Netherlands, where dog adoption is incentivised. He argues, “Nothing is scalable to India in this manner. India’s problems are of a whole different magnitude.”

Commenting on the success of these cities, Bhadra also says, “Usually, sterilisation is carried out in pockets, a city, town, or municipality, and dogs tend to migrate. That undermines the effort.” She points to the lack of scientific input in the planning process. “You don’t have data or inputs from scientists on the life cycle or behavioural ecology of dogs. Most rules and court orders are based on inputs from dog lovers, who, understandably, may not have a complete or objective view of the biology of the system,” she says.

Nazareth also acknowledges that animal birth control or ABC is not a “magic wand” but believes it can bring numbers down over time. She stresses, “Vaccination must be carried out annually, which will be money well spent in creating safer communities.” She also points out that the media and community play a critical role.

Modelling the challenge

Scientific evidence adds weight to these concerns. A 2020 paper in Nature examined whether sterilisation and vaccination can realistically control India’s street dog population. Researchers built a computer model based on a city of one million people and about 35,000 dogs and tested four different animal birth control scenarios over 30 years.

Low-intensity efforts, involving approximately 15,000 surgeries, and moderate ones, involving 30,000, showed only temporary declines in numbers before the populations rebounded. A high-intensity “best case” scenario with more than 42,000 surgeries, nearly every dog sterilised, sharply reduced the population and kept it low, but only under idealised conditions and at a very high cost. When real-world factors such as dog movement between areas and limited accessibility were added, even high-intensity efforts failed. Populations initially dipped but then exceeded the starting level.

The study stressed that poorly planned programmes are likely to “do little good,” and highlighted the gap in massive resources needed for global elimination: a shortfall of 7.5 billion vaccine doses and $3.9 billion in funding. The researchers also introduced a tool, DogPopDy, to help local authorities plan better, but say it has not been taken up in India.

“The whole point of the model was to help practitioners understand the challenges of managing dog populations using ABC,” says Vanak, a co-author of the study. “It doesn’t matter whether you use this model or that model. What matters is you have to have a more systematic plan.”

Bhadra agrees that enough data now exists to plan population management more effectively, but stresses that it must actually be used.

Municipalities, however, have been slow to act. “This is not a priority programme for municipalities in India, and there is a lack of willingness to create the necessary infrastructure for it,” says Nazareth. Current policy requires dogs to be kept in care for five days after sterilisation, which in turn demands well-equipped facilities, trained staff, systems for maintaining records, and proper waste disposal mechanisms.

Vanak views the Supreme Court’s orders as a chance to push the issue higher on the agenda. “Let this be a wake-up call for capacity building.”

Read more: [Commentary] India needs a scientific response to mitigate the population of free-ranging dogs

Banner image: A stray dog in Kolkata. In 2024 and 2025, the Centre issued advisories urging Urban Local Bodies to set up Animal Birth Control units and carry out large-scale sterilisation programmes. Image by Biswarup Ganguly via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-3.0).