Chennai: The three zones of Royapuram, Kodambakkam and Adyar got a technological advantage as the routine survey of stray dogs began on Tuesday. The census of dogs in the area, conducted by the Chennai corporation will be taken using a specially customised android application.
The census, conducted once in four years, sees staff members deployed across the city on two-wheelers spotting and keeping count of dogs on the streets. This time around, the observer, armed with a phone will speed up the process.
“An entire zone could be covered on a single day,” said one of the observers. “We can identify the spots where there are a lot of dogs and this may eventually help in mass sterilization or immunization drives,” he added.
On spotting a dog, the team has been instructed to stop the vehicle, and the observer will mark the dog on one of the six available categories on the app: sterilized male, unsterilized male, sterilized female, unsterilized female, lactating mothers and puppies.
“Each team is given a route map. Once all the data is acquired, we can interpret it,” said A. Umapathy, city corporation PRO. The last census, conducted in 2014 identified a total of 83,000 dogs in the city. This year, a rough estimation after the initial rounds of the survey says that the numbers may have reduced. The app will be used across all zones and the census will be completed using it, assures Umapathy.
