The story so far: In April, a 65-year-old woman in Srinagar was attacked by street dogs outside her home. Also sitting in front of her house is a garbage collection point — a mound of food and poultry waste that becomes food for free-roaming dogs in the area, as per reports.
The incident, one among several, spotlighted the link between urban solid waste management and stray dog attacks in Indian cities. Frequent reports of dogs chasing people down the road, attacking and even “mauling” people to death have made the management of stray dogs an administrative and legal issue.
But what also determines how frequently, and where, these attacks happen is how efficiently a city’s sanitation and waste disposal facilities operate, experts say. According to them, unless cities learn to manage solid waste better, rabies vaccines and dog sterilisation will have little effect.
