MCG to Hire Two Agencies to Catch Over 35,000 Stray Animals

GURUGRAM: The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram will appoint two private agencies next week for a citywide drive to catch stray cattle from roads, colonies and markets, Joint Commissioner (Swachh Bharat Mission) Preet Pal Singh said, after an MCG survey put more than 35,000 stray cattle and other animals on the streets.

Separate tenders were floated for the city's two clusters. Three technically qualified agencies have bid for each cluster, and the lowest bidders are expected to get the contracts next week. "We will have two agencies next week. There is no target for them. They have to transport all stray cattle in their jurisdiction to the cow shelters," Singh said.

The agencies must field specialised vehicles with hydraulic lifts, modern equipment and trained staff, and work both day and night. Animals are to be geo-tagged and medically examined before they are shifted to recognised gaushalas. MCG has also proposed financial penalties if an agency misses assigned targets. The two-cluster split is meant to give each contractor a defined area, so catching is continuous rather than a one-week blitz after which cattle walk back onto the same junctions.

The fresh tenders follow MCG's decision to terminate the previous contractor, citing alleged gross negligence and failure to meet prescribed targets. New bids were invited about a month ago. Stray cattle have been a running complaint on highways and busy intersections, where animals wander into fast traffic and stand in market lanes. Older state figures had put several thousand cattle still on Gurugram roads even after large catching drives. The new MCG survey number — more than 35,000 stray cattle and other animals — is wider than cattle-only counts and is the figure the corporation is now using to size the two contracts.

The new contracts, as described, put the burden on agencies to empty their clusters rather than hit a published daily quota. Singh was explicit: there is no target number, only the instruction to move every stray animal in the cluster to a recognised shelter. How many gaushalas actually have space, and how the corporation stops a shifted animal walking back onto the same highway, are questions the award letters will not by themselves answer.

Officials said the arrangement is meant to replace one-off catching drives with a standing two-cluster system, and that it will only work if animals, once shifted, do not return to the same roads.

For now the civic instruction is operational. Two agencies, two clusters, hydraulic vehicles, geo-tags, medical checks, and a penalty clause. Next week, if the awards go through, the catching is supposed to start and not stop at a round figure.