As activists and citizens raise questions over the effectiveness of BMC’s sterilisation programme and rising cases of dog bites, the civic body plans to start counting stray dogs on Mumbai’s streets. The dog census is likely to begin in January 2023. In the last such census, done in 2014, the corporation had found 95,174 stray dogs in the city.

“We wanted to start the dog census immediately, but the agencies that are working for this kind of work suggested it should be done in January,” said Dr K L Pathan, head of BMC’s animal husbandry department.