Udupi : The issue of stray dogs dominated the general body meeting of Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC) here on Friday.

Raising the issue, Dinaker Shetty, councillor, said that people in various wards were complaining that there were lot of stray dogs.

Another councillor Narsimha Nayak said that stray dog problem was high near MGM College. Hence the problem there should be tackled on a priority as there were lot of students in the surroundings. Naveen Bhandary, councillor, said that there was stray dog menace near almost all fish markets in the city.

Prashanth Amin, councillor, said that some persons were leaving puppies at the Malpe fisheries harbour. With the result, the harbour now had a big dog population. Some dog owners were leaving their dogs on the roads, when they wanted, and tied them when they liked.

Hence it had become difficult to distinguish between stray and pet dogs. “The CMC should make it compulsory to all dog owners to register their dogs along with photographs. A fee of Rs. 300 should be charged from dog owners,” he said.

Yashpal Suvarna, councillor, said that though registration of dogs might be proactive step, it was essential to have two to three CMC staff members to deal with the registration process.

Intervening, P. Yuvaraj, CMC President, said that there were about 6,000 dogs in the city. The CMC had taken up the programme of sterilising dogs to check their population. As per the norms, these dogs had to be left back to the places from where they were picked after the sterilisation operation.

It was essential that the councillors give information to the CMC about the stray dog problems in their wards. This would also help officials to go there and catch the dogs for sterilisation. Priority would be given to catching dogs near schools, colleges and markets. “The CMC will start the process of making the registration of pet dogs shortly,” he said.