Mumbai’s street dogs to get QR code collars

Street dogs with QR code collars to tag them near the international airport

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to mark all street dogs in Mumbai with QR code collars which will help geo-tag them, identify migration and also keep tabs on vaccination and other data. The BMC completed a pilot project of the same near the international airport last month. The process of putting the QR code collars on all stray dogs will begin next year during a rabies vaccination drive. The dog census is also expected to begin next year.

"During the rabies vaccinations, we will tie a tag to the dog's neck which will have information with details like when the vaccination was administered, the location and also information about the person who feeds the dog regularly, etc. The collars will be able to identify new dogs in areas," explained BMC's Animal Husbandry Department Head Dr K L Pathan.

"A central database will be maintained and the data from the tag sent to the control room of the agency that administers the jabs. The idea is to maintain a digital database of all the dogs and address complaints of migration which we keep getting in large numbers," he added.

As a pilot project in July 2023, the BMC had vaccinated 26 street dogs near the international airport and put QR code collars on them.

"The census of street dogs that was expected to begin this year, has now been postponed to next year because there were some technical issues with the agencies involved. During the census, we will parallelly conduct vaccination and tag the dogs with QR codes," another official added.

According to the BMC's statistics, as per the last census in 2014, there were around 95,000 street dogs and the number is expected to go up to 1.64 lakh.