Pemra told to air awareness message about stray dogs on all TV channels
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court directed the chairman of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Thursday to ensure that a public awareness message regarding a helpline about stray dogs was aired by all news channels and cable TV networks across the province.
The two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar also directed the Pemra general manager, Karachi region, to appear in person on April 16 with a compliance report.
When a petition about the rise in dog-bite incidents in the province and shortage of anti-rabies vaccines at government-run hospitals came up before the bench on Thursday, the local government secretary and chairman of a task force, constituted to help local administration with detention and control of stray dogs, turned up and filed replies to show-cause notices issued in the last hearing.
According to their explanations, the public awareness messages regarding the helpline about stray dogs have been published in 11 newspapers. However, the bench observed that they could not submit any record of the public campaign on the electronic media and they sought time to file a separate report for the electronic media. Copies of explanations and progress report were provided to the petitioner.
The execution of Sindh’s anti-rabies scheme approved with a cost of Rs963.316m, SHC told
The roadmap and timeline for the implementation of the ‘Rabies control programme Sindh’ have also been filed and the petitioner sought time to go through the same for further proceedings.
Earlier, the bench was informed that the chief minister had approved the summary for the execution of the scheme with a cost of Rs963.316 million. The task force chairman submitted that he had written a letter to the Pemra chairman to issue directions to the news channels to air the public awareness message for lodging complaints about stray dogs on the helpline.
The bench directed the local government secretary to send the CDs of the public awareness message to Pemra and told the Pemra chairman that this message must be aired on all news channels and cable TV networks all over the province in the larger public interest. The local government secretary contended that after the publication of advertisements in newspapers for helpline, complaints were being received and forwarded to the authorities concerned.
The petitioner had maintained that dog bites had been on the rise in Sindh and due to the failure of the provincial and local administrations to tackle the situation stray dogs had not been dealt with. On the other hand anti-rabies vaccines were not available at government-run hospitals.
He sought direction for the provincial and local governments to take necessary steps for vaccination, detention and control of the population of stray dogs as per the World Health Organisation’s guidelines.
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