thiruvananthapuram the strained ties between cpm and cpi at the statelevel have also left behind tremors in corporation ruling council during the last few months derailing the ambitious rabc scheme of the city corporation the new awareness campaign being kicked off by corporation just four months after the launch of rabc scheme has been forced by a series of political tussles between cpm and cpi over the appointment of veterinary surgeons when the project was launched on june 21 senior veterinary surgeon at pettah prem jain was appointed as the nodal officer hardly two weeks into the launch of the project a meeting was convened in which prem jain was taken off the charge of rabc scheme in the meantime cpm had pitched its candidate to fill the vacancy of corporation vet surgeon cpi reportedly thwarted the move as minister for animal husbandry k raju a cpi minister rejected the proposal regarding appointment of cpm candidate as the veterinary surgeon of corporation the veterinary surgeon is appointed on deputation from department of animal husbandry and the order was issued in favour of a cpi candidate with lack of clarity over project leadership the scheme which is being implemented at a cost of rs 3 crore got into a sluggish mode the project aimed at sterilising all stray dogs in the city in the next two years mandatory licensing system was also envisaged for pet dogs besides all stray dogs were to be sterilised and vaccinated and were to be inserted with microchips for identification as per the latest statistics available with corporation 1200 dogs were given license since april and 3000 dogs were vaccinated the project officials say that close to 300 dogs were given license between june and july in august a fresh order was issued appointing new veterinary surgeon dr p s raju as the nodal officer of rabc scheme and it was also mentioned in the order that dr prem jain shall restrict his duties to animal husbandry the civic body lost nearly three months in the tussle over appointment and the confusion at the helm of the project ensued by the new appointment with cpi managing to appoint its candidate the cpm had no other option but to entrust the project to the fresh appointment while the parties clashed over their interests a project launched with multipronged objectives has lost its focus officials point outthe veterinary surgeon who has been in charge of abc project at pettah has also resigned further adding to the woes as per the statistics of urban affairs department 16 dogs were sterilised between october 30 and november 4 while corporation figures state that 1200 dogs were given license since april the official stattistics of urban affairs department show that no pet dogs were registered or vaccinated in thiruvananthapuram corporationwith the project going haywire mayor v k prasanth has now assigned monthly targets to vets for licensing of pets each vet will have to issue license to 150 pet dogs a month