- It is slated to be an institute of eminence
- Aiming to break into the top 20-40 rankings in the world
- Dogs chasing foreign guests may mar reputation
- Wild life also endangered by the stray dogs
(By a special correspondent)
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM), is an educational institution of repute, ranked #1 in NIRF rankings for the past 5 years. It is an institute that was selected to be one of the Institutes of Eminence, aiming to break into the top 20-40 rankings in the world. This institute has been plagued for over 5-6 years by a serious problem, a problem that might become a hurdle for the Institute in reaching its lofty goal.
The problem is UNREGULATED PROLIFERATION OF STRAY DOGS, artificially amplified by a small group of dog feeders.
The dogs attack faculty as they travel to work place. They chase people going on two wheelers and cycles. Recently a faculty member who was going on a two-wheeler was chased by a stray dog. He lost control and met with an accident and had to undergo two plastic surgeries as a result. The stray dogs attack old people and children on campus, creating a potentially life threatening situation. The stray dogs are found everywhere in the office buildings, in class rooms, in the labs, creating unsafe conditions for work. As a consequence, there could be law suits by the employees against the administration for creating unsafe workplace surroundings.
As a part of its mandate to become an Institute of Eminence (IoE), IITM plans to invite a lot of international visitors from the next year. Most of these people come from the first world where stray dogs on the streets are unheard of. If the guests are chased by the stray dogs on IITM campus streets and get into an accident, there could be law suits against the administration besides getting a bad name for the campus.
IITM campus is also a reserve for wild life housing a number of species like spotted deer, black buck etc. The black buck is an endangered species, and the Institute has taken the responsibility to protect them. But the stray dogs frequently attack and kill the deer. The young fawn are particularly vulnerable.
But a small number of vociferous dog lovers are intransigent in their will to feed the dogs in an unregulated fashion. Also some people are smuggling stray dogs from outside into the campus to add to the problem.
Efforts by the IITM administration to regulate stray dogs are met with intimidation from certain high ranking officials in Delhi. The competent authority must look into this serious problem and do everything to protect a prestigious academic institution, the campus community, and the wild life that is housed within, from the menace of stray dogs. One should not allow the hard built reputation of the premier institute to literally go to dogs. It is high time the concerned authorities intervened in this matter and made the campus dog-free.
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Thanx for publishing the real problem.
Also there are associated threats from dog
Lovers, on the community.
Yes, This is a serious problem here. I am lucky to escape from the dog attacks on two occasions. Each time I may not be lucky. The ideal situation would be to hand over the stray dogs to any rehabilitation center and declare IITM as stray-dog-free campus. In any case all dog lovers have their freedom of adopting any dog including stray dog as their pet(s). They can keep any dog in their own premises with full freedom so that lucky dogs can get 24 hour attention from their owners. Choices should come with inherent responsibility.
Thanks for highlighting this issue. Really waiting for IITM administration to take a very serious step to resolve this issue.
Thank you for briniging this issue to the public. I personally faced the threats from the street dogs in IITM campus. I got chased by them when I ride in two wheeler and also during evening jogging/walking. My kid is very much scared to walk on the street when she sees a stray dog. Not only humans, deers are becoming prey to those stray dogs. Thats why, deer number is decreasing in the campus.
I would be highly grateful if the stray dogs will be caught and left outside far away from the campus. Feeding of the stray dogs must be prohibited in the campus.
Thank you very much.
Its ur problem. Don’t generalize it. Please ….
I really want these stray dogs to be removed from iit m campus.
I used to feed almost 130 dogs inside our campus on daily basis. They are not like other stray dogs which are roaming outside campus. They are extremely friendly and wants human accompany all the time. They have their own places which are away from common gathering areas and they don’t want to search for food. We a group of people used to feed them on time in their own places. Because of this issue we are unable to feed and all dogs are starving and I am sure that they don’t eat substandard food given by the trust. They used to eat high quality dry food and chicken rice every day. We are making sure that all dogs are well fed. I know personally all the dogs inside campus and all the informations metioned in this article are wrong and fake.May be one among 170 is doing and that also am not sure. Why we want to blame all dogs for a single dog( if it is true) . They are not used to chase people and they don’t want to hunt for food. They all are neutered vaccinated and bathed regularly. I have data for all these. Don’t spread rumors and please don’t make our babies die out of hunger inside the cage.