Chandigarh is preparing to build one of North India’s largest dedicated stray dog shelters, a project designed to finally give the city’s dog population management system the permanent infrastructure it has long lacked.
The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation is developing the facility on roughly two acres of land in Sector 25-West, at an estimated cost of ₹18.42 crore. Once complete, the shelter is expected to accommodate approximately 1,980 dogs, a scale that would make it one of the biggest civic dog shelters in the region.
Why the Project Exists
This isn’t a discretionary civic upgrade. The shelter is being built specifically in response to a Supreme Court order issued on November 7, 2025, as part of a suo motu writ petition addressing dog-bite incidents and stray dog management across institutional premises nationwide.
That order directed every state and Union Territory to remove stray dogs from public institutions — including schools, hospitals, sports complexes, bus depots, and railway stations — and relocate them to designated shelters after proper sterilisation and vaccination, in line with the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The Court was explicit that dogs removed from these premises cannot simply be released back into the same area, since doing so would defeat the entire purpose of securing those spaces.
Each affected public institution has also been instructed to appoint a dedicated nodal officer responsible for monitoring and managing stray dog activity going forward, alongside requirements to properly fence and secure premises against re-entry.
What the Facility Will Include
According to the Municipal Corporation’s plans submitted to the Animal Welfare Board, the Sector 25-West shelter will offer a comprehensive suite of services: Animal Birth Control (ABC) sterilisation, Anti-Rabies Vaccination (ARV), rehabilitation, and ongoing comprehensive care for the city’s stray dog population.
The broader construction scope includes boundary walls, administrative blocks, internal circulation roads, pavements, a water supply and drainage system, an effluent treatment plant, and landscaping — the kind of full civic infrastructure needed to operate a shelter of this scale sustainably over the long term.
Reports circulating around the project have also pointed to climate-controlled kennels designed to keep dogs comfortable through Chandigarh’s harsh summers and winters, alongside a dedicated round-the-clock veterinary facility on-site. While the Municipal Corporation’s tender documentation confirms the shelter’s core sterilisation, vaccination, and rehabilitation functions, exact specifications for kennel climate control and specific dimensions have not been independently detailed in official releases so far.
A Location Chosen With Purpose
The site itself was selected deliberately. Positioned away from dense residential and commercial areas, the shelter’s location is intended to give the city’s rescued and rehabilitated dogs a quieter environment to recover in, while minimizing disruption to nearby communities — a departure from past shelter locations that created friction with surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Bigger Picture: A City Under Pressure to Act
Chandigarh’s stray dog challenge isn’t new. The city’s existing sterilisation infrastructure, run through its Sector 38 Animal Birth Control Centre and other facilities, has processed tens of thousands of dogs over the years, yet dog-bite incidents have remained a persistent public safety concern, with thousands of cases reported annually.
The Sector 25-West project represents a significant scale-up from the city’s current shelter capacity, aiming to close the gap between the sheer number of stray dogs requiring intervention and the infrastructure available to actually house, treat, and rehabilitate them.
What Comes Next
With a target completion window of around seven months from project approval, Chandigarh residents can expect the shelter to become operational later this year, assuming construction stays on schedule. For a city that has faced repeated scrutiny — including past court criticism over conditions at its existing animal shelter facilities — the new Sector 25-West project represents a chance to build shelter infrastructure that matches both the scale of the problem and the standards the Supreme Court has now made mandatory nationwide.
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