new delhi the capital has witnessed over 40000 cases of dog bites this year alone translating to over 200 cases daily or nine cases every hour in the first half of this year north corporation has reported over 23459 cases at its hospitals and dispensaries while east delhi has seen 16488 cases at antirabies clinics the work of sterilising dogs has been mostly outsourced to ngos which charge rs 500750 per dog despite spending a heavy budget annually the number of dog attacks is not coming down last december dog bite cases at antirabies clinics of the three civic bodies were over 80000 while in 2015 the number was above 78000 the actual number of stray dogs on the citys streets is not known the last pandelhi survey was conducted by the erstwhile unified mcd in 2009 in which the number of stray dogs was over 56 lakh the number must have increased in the ensuing years said an edmc officiala survey conducted by ngo humane society international in 2016 showed that south delhi alone has over 189 lakh strays the civic bodies have floated tenders several times but failed to get a response it is very difficult to put an exact figure on the stray population the official added interestingly south delhi has reported only 893 cases of dog bites this year last years count was 2650 officials argue that the low count is due to lesser number of people approaching the municipal dispensaries preferring private clinics and hospitalsthere are only 13 sterilisation centres under the three corporations while sdmc has 12 sterilisation centres north corporation has just one edmc has none north and east corporations are in the process of opening five more centresngos argue that strays are being unnecessarily targeted gauri maulekhi from people for animals trust said so many dog bites cant be attributed to strays a study in kerala showed that a large number of people were bitten by pet dogs infrastructure for sterilisation commensurate to the problem should be built and areawise targets should be fixed