Greater Chennai Corporation launches portal, app for pet licensing

CHENNAI: Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) Mayor R Priya launched an integrated digital platform, including a website and a mobile application, for the identification and end-to-end management of community and pet dog records, at Ripon Building on Friday. Though designed for state-wide implementation, the initiative has been initially launched in Chennai corporation through an improvised pet animal licence portal on the civic bodys website. When expanded to other regions in the state, a separate portal is expected to be introduced. While public can access the platform through the portal, the mobile application is for the exclusive use of GCC staff. With pet licences already mandatory in the city since 2023, pet owners will have to meet two key requirements for obtaining licences through the portal: Dogs must be microchipped - with details such as the owners name, address, contact number, pets species, breed, colour, ICAR certified microchip ID, and vaccination status - and they must have received Anti-Rabies Vaccine(ARV). Applications for licences can be submitted through the portal, with owners selecting the particular hospitals and veterinarians (both private and government from an updated state-wide list) at which they got the ARV for their pets. The application is then verified by the particular veterinarian, who approves breed and vaccination details using their login credentials created for them in the portal before forwarding it to the GCC. The zonal veterinary officer will then review the data before issuing the licence, explained Niranjan Kumar M, project manager at Exhilar Innovative Solutions Pvt Ltd, which designed the portal. Licences will be valid as per the ARV status to ensure annual vaccination for continuous protection. Pet owners will receive reminders a month, a week, and a day before expiry of vaccination period through SMS and WhatsApp. For community dogs, dog catchers will use the mobile application to upload photos and GPS coordinates at the site where each dog is captured. After sterilisation, vaccination, and microchipping, details including the veterinarians name and vaccination date are recorded in the portal with microchip ID. The dogs are then released at the same location. The application will mark the process as complete only if the GPS coordinates where the dogs are released fall within 30 sqm radius of the spots where they were captured, ensuring compliance with the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023. The portal also enables pet transfers, adoption of community dogs, and reporting of lost pets. Microchip tracking allows recovery of lost pets during GCC drives, while unreported dogs may be treated as abandoned, prompting action against owners. A complaints section allows reporting of dog bites or animal cruelty with photographic evidence. Future enhancements in the portal would include dog-bite statistics, action taken reports, total vaccinations, along with zone-and-breed-wise data. It will also provide information on pet licence applications received and rejected, Niranjan said. According to GCC, as of September, 12,393 pet licences have been issued. Owners are responsible for cleaning if their pets poop on public roads or streets. Animals must be on collar and leash; roaming without a muzzle is prohibited, the release said. As many as 12,250 community dogs have been fitted with QR code collars, and microchipped. Since 2021, a total of 72,345 street dogs have been sterilised and vaccinated against rabies.