Pets in Delhi, 2026: a dog population nobody has counted since 2009, 25,210 bites in 2024, 1,31,137 sterilisations in a year, a Supreme Court that rewrote the rules three times, a Rs 500 registration and one municipal pet crematorium

Pets in Delhi: the capital's numbers on one page

Delhi's dog numbers were argued in the Supreme Court for most of 2025. Fifteen figures, from twelve sources, with the one that is missing marked as missing.

Two rows explain the year the city had. Delhi does not know how many street dogs it has, so every target set for it is a guess against a guess; and its bite count nearly quadrupled in two years in the national surveillance table. The rest of this report is about what the corporation did with those two facts once the Supreme Court made it.

How many street dogs Delhi has: a 2009 count, a 2016 half-count, and an estimate of 10 lakh

Mumbai and Bengaluru have surveyed their dogs this decade. Delhi's last citywide count is older than the ABC Rules it works under.

The last citywide dog census in Delhi was in 2009, and it counted about 5.6 lakh dogs; no survey has been done in the 16 years since. The one count since then covered a third of the city: a Humane Society International street survey carried out at the request of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation in 2016 estimated 1,89,285 roaming dogs, 31 for every 1,000 people, a figure the corporation's officials now describe as 'roughly 1,90,000 dogs' enumerated 'in four administrative zones'. A Delhi Assembly subcommittee put the city's total at about 8 lakh in 2019, and the corporation's veterinary officials now say the population 'is likely to be around 10 lakh or more'.

The Livestock Census is no help here. Delhi reported 60,472 stray dogs to the 2019 census, the identical figure to the last digit that it reported in 2012, because the census was not completed in the capital and the earlier figure was carried forward; Bonbeno's street dog report sets that number beside Mumbai's 90,757 and Bengaluru's 2,79,335, both surveyed, and explains why the census column cannot be used for Delhi at all.

The count that is coming: microchips

The MCD's answer is a survey by microchip. At the Bijwasan Animal Birth Control centre '600-700 dogs per month were being microchipped' by October 2026, the corporation 'is preparing a tender' for a citywide exercise with an NGO using corporate social responsibility funds, and the 2026-27 budget earmarks Rs 20 crore for microchipping strays beside Rs 20 crore for dog shelters The Pioneer, 'MCD plans citywide dog survey…. Until that count exists, every figure in this report that divides by Delhi's dogs, from the sterilised share to the shelters needed, rests on the 10 lakh estimate.

Dog bites: 25,210 cases in 2024 in the national table, a hospital counting 7,376 in one month, and the death that moved the court

Delhi's bite series is the national surveillance table's, and it runs a year behind. One government hospital's monthly count shows what 2025 looked like.

The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha on 1 April 2025 gives Delhi 6,691 dog bite cases in 2022, 17,874 in 2023, 25,210 in 2024 and 3,196 in January 2025 alone, with no suspected human rabies deaths in any of those years. The 2024 figure is 115.9 per lakh of population, against a national count of 37,15,713; Bonbeno's dog bite report ranks every state on the same table. A single hospital shows how much the citywide count leaves out: Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, a central government facility, 'recorded 5,442 cases in January, 4,039 in February, 3,688 in March, and 4,817 in April' 2025, then 4,520 in May, 4,976 in June and 7,376 in July, so one hospital's January exceeded the whole city's January in the surveillance table.

The deaths are the gap between the table and the street. The IDSP reports zero rabies deaths for Delhi from January 2022 to January 2025, and in July 2025 the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of 'the death of a six-year-old girl in Delhi due to rabies', citing 17,874 bites in 2023, 25,210 in 2024, 3,196 in January 2025 and 54 rabies deaths across the country in 2024. Delhi's suspected-rabies count comes from the same reporting system, and a child bitten in the capital was counted in no table before she died.

The Animal Birth Control programme: 12 years of figures, 20 centres with 7 shut, and a year that doubled the output

Delhi's sterilisation numbers come out one RTI at a time. Put together, they show a programme that did in 2024-25 what it had never done before, and still cannot say what share of the city's dogs it has reached.

The MCD 'sterilised and immunised 1,31,137 dogs during 2024-25', then 1,01,394 in 2025-26 and 65,784 in January to August 2026, according to an RTI reply dated 12 October 2026. The six years before that, from the corporation's veterinary data obtained under the RTI Act, were 99,997 in 2019-20, 51,990 in 2020-21, 91,326 in 2021-22, 59,076 in 2022-23, 79,959 in 2023-24 and 97,994 in April to December 2024, 'more than 4.8 lakh' in six years; the five years before those, as VOSD reconstructs them from Hindustan Times reporting, climbed from 33,125 in 2014-15 to 88,175 in 2018-19. In the six months to June 2026 the corporation told the Delhi High Court it had vaccinated 52,457 dogs and sterilised 49,424, and between August and November 2025, the months after the Supreme Court's first order, it caught and sterilised 26,993.

Against an estimated 10 lakh dogs, 1,31,137 surgeries in a year is 13 percent, and against the 2009 count of 5.6 lakh it is 23 percent; the sterilised share of the population is not published, because no survey has measured it. VOSD's analysis puts the corporation's reimbursement at about Rs 1,000 a surgery and veterinary services at 0.64 percent of a Rs 17,002.66 crore budget; Mumbai, for comparison, pays its agencies Rs 1,543 to Rs 1,750 a dog under its 2026 plan, as Bonbeno's Mumbai report records.

The 20 centres, and what each one holds

The corporation 'currently operates only 20 animal control centres', which hold dogs for short post-operative care and could house at most 5,000 if every one were turned into a shelter. In August 2026 it told the High Court that 'seven of the 20 Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres' had been shut since October 2025, reportedly over alleged non-compliance with Animal Welfare Board of India norms, and that the centres had been run by 13 NGOs; 14 centres have received the project recognition the ABC Rules, 2023 require and two more applications are pending. The largest is Rohini at about 1,700 dogs, then Usmanpur at 1,200 to 1,300 and Bela Road at about 850, with 45, 35 and 35 kennels being added; Prahladpur, at 600 to 750, has in-principle approval, and a proposed Mukundpur complex would hold an ABC centre, a shelter and a crematorium for about 4,000 dogs. VOSD names the operators the public knows the centres by: Friendicoes at Ghazipur and Bijwasan, Animal India Trust at Lajpat Nagar, PAWS at Masoodpur, Yash Domestic Research Centre at Tughlaqabad, Sonadi Charitable Trust at Najafgarh, and the MCD's own units at Rohini, Timarpur, Dwarka and Usmanpur.

The Supreme Court's year: three orders, a feeding ban, 735 feeding points and a shelter for 1,500 aggressive dogs

Everything Delhi did about its dogs after July 2025 was done on a court's timetable. The dates matter, because each order changed what the one before it had said.

On 11 August 2025 the court ordered Delhi, the MCD and the NDMC to 'immediately catch and sterilise stray dogs' and relocate them permanently to shelters, build the shelters within eight weeks, open a helpline within a week and act on every bite complaint within four hours. Eleven days later a three-judge bench called that approach 'harsh', put the no-release direction in abeyance, ordered sterilised and vaccinated dogs released to the same locality as rule 11(19) of the ABC Rules requires, kept rabid and aggressive dogs apart, barred feeding anywhere but designated zones, and impleaded every state and union territory. On 7 November 2025 it carved out the institutional areas, every school, college, hospital, sports complex, bus stand and railway station, which must be fenced and from which dogs are moved to shelters after sterilisation and vaccination, with Chief Secretaries 'held personally responsible' and compliance reports due in eight weeks.

What the orders produced in the city is countable. The MCD Standing Committee 'has identified 735 designated feeding points across all 250 wards', where before the order it 'had identified 292 feeding points across 80 wards, of which only 14 had been made functional'. For the dogs the 22 August order said must be kept apart, the corporation is building a shelter at Dwarka with the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation that 'will house 1,500 aggressive and biting stray dogs' and is expected to open by December 2026; captured dogs are held about 15 days after surgery before release. The Delhi High Court, a Division Bench of Justice Dinesh Mehta and Justice Rajneesh Kumar Gupta, is monitoring compliance and ordered a status report on vaccination, sterilisation and shelters by 31 July 2026. The corporation's own first plan after the August order was phased, starting with dogs 'prone to biting or infected with rabies', and said only 10 of its sterilisation centres were operational at the time.

Veterinary care: 585 vets on the register, 49 in government posts, no mobile unit, and 38 private clinics of which 7 never close

Delhi's government veterinary system is the smallest of the eight cities' states, and its private layer the hardest to list, because 'animal hospital' here means cattle.

Delhi had 585 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024 and 64 sanctioned government doctor posts, 15 of them vacant, so 49 of the 585 hold a state post. Its government network is 48 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics and 29 dispensaries, 77 institutions with no aid centres, and of 3 mobile veterinary units sanctioned under the central scheme none was operational in January 2025. Bonbeno's Vet Access Index shows why Delhi's 616 livestock per registered vet flatters it: the register is swollen by a capital's institutions, and the livestock count is the 2012 figure carried forward.

The private layer: 38 clinics, 7 of them 24-hour clinics

Bonbeno's vet directory for Delhi, each entry checked against its Google listing on 16 October 2026 for an address, a live phone number and the hours the clinic itself publishes, lists 38 clinics and hospitals, 7 of which publish round-the-clock opening: Urban Vet Clinic in Burari, Puplife Pet Clinic in Saket, Vetic's clinic in Dwarka Sector 17, the NDMC veterinary hospital at Moti Bagh, Dr Anand's Pets Hospital and Dr Dheeraj's clinic in Vikaspuri, and Najafgarh Pet Clinic near Dwarka Mor. Ten of the 38 are government veterinary hospitals or dispensaries by name, at Pooth Khurd, Bawana, Narela, Alipur, Tughlakabad, Jaunapur, Moti Bagh, Dwarka Sector 16, Dichaon Kalan and Mahavir Enclave, and their ratings of 3.1 to 4.1 pull Delhi's average of 4.14 across 10,178 Google reviews to the lowest of the eight cities in the directory, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. Thirteen of the 38 are rated 4.5 or higher, and 17 have a website.

The directory's method note records a trap specific to the capital: the pull returned 60 records and 22 were dropped, six of them 'not companion-animal care at all: a cow hospital, three gaushalas, a wildlife rescue centre and a pet crematorium', because 'animal hospital' in Indian usage covers cattle facilities and Delhi has many. The Google Maps 'pet grooming' pull of 2 November 2026 returned 52 pet groomers, 23 pet stores and 13 boarding listings in its first 100 results, and the 'pet boarding' pull 84 boarding, day-care, kennel or trainer listings and 5 cat boarding services. What a consultation, a vaccination or a surgery costs is in Bonbeno's guide to what a vet visit costs in India.

Shops, groomers and boarders: 300 Google Maps listings, 14 shop names that sell animals, and a capital with no registered pet shop

Delhi's pet retail is large, lightly reviewed and, on the state's own admission to the High Court, unregistered.

Of the first 100 Google Maps results for 'pet shop' in Delhi, 98 are pet stores or pet supply stores and 2 are aquarium shops, with no groomer, breeder, clinic or non-pet business among them, the cleanest category split of the eight cities; 95 are rated, the median listing has 36 reviews, 72.6 percent score 4.5 or higher, 37 percent have a website, 14 claim 24-hour opening and 14 names advertise live animals, puppies or birds. Heads Up For Tails appears once; Delhi's shops are independents. The grooming pull found 52 pet groomers, a median of 64 reviews, 84.5 percent at 4.5 or higher and 54 percent with a website, with Heads Up For Tails four times, Vetic and Wiggles once each; the boarding pull 84 boarding, day-care, kennel or trainer listings, 79.3 percent of the rated ones at 4.5 or higher, and 43 claiming 24-hour opening, the most of any city. Bonbeno's dog grooming cost guide and boarding versus a pet sitter cover the prices and the choice.

Registered pet shops: zero, 56 applications, a Rs 50 fine

Every shop that sells an animal needs a certificate from the State Animal Welfare Board under the Pet Shop Rules, 2018, and the Animal Welfare Board of India wrote to every state in December 2023 that only Maharashtra had reported on implementing them. In Delhi, five years after the Rules, 'not a single pet shop' was registered in September 2023, against 56 applications, and the State Board itself had been constituted only that April. A public notice of 6 November 2024, issued on the Delhi High Court's order, gave shops and breeders a month to register or close; a month later the government's counsel told the court that no centre had complied and that the maximum penalty was Rs 50, and in January 2026 the court ordered the Board to file a fresh report on a petition alleging rampant illegal breeding. The petition itself dates from May 2022. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause and the one state register that exists.

Pet dog registration: section 399, a Rs 500 certificate, an SOP that says who decides, and the feeding and institution rules a pet owner now lives under

Delhi's registration is the best documented in the country, because the MCD publishes an SOP. What it does not publish is how many dogs are registered.

A pet dog in Delhi must be registered with the MCD under section 399 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, and the corporation's SOP says so in its first line: 'As per the u/s 399 DMC Act of 1957 each Dog owner need to register Pet Dog with the MCD'. The SOP's purpose clause sets the rules of the process: the applicant must be 18 or older, 'For Registration of each pet dog separate application need to be made', every application is processed by the zonal Deputy Director (Veterinary Services) or Veterinary Officer, who 'have full right to issue / Reject the applications based on merit' and 'can raise document deficiency', an approved certificate carries 'a token number and valid QR Code', and the certificate must be surrendered if the dog dies, is sold or the owner leaves Delhi. The section's enforcement is detention: the MCD can detain an unregistered dog found in a public place, and the Act provides for a fine and prosecution.

The fees are stated in one place and are the same everywhere in the city: Rs 500 for a new registration certificate and Rs 500 for each annual renewal, with a late fee of Rs 100 a month after a one-month grace period; the portal adds that the grace period runs from the expiry of the anti-rabies vaccination certificate, that documents go up as PDFs under 2 MB, and that a false or ambiguous application is rejected without refund. How many of Delhi's pet dogs are registered is not published; the corporation urged owners to register in September 2022 'after rise in dog bite cases', warning of detention, fine and prosecution, and no count has been released since. Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India walks the MCD portal's five steps beside Mumbai's, Chennai's and Kolkata's.

Feeding, institutions and the metro

The rules a Delhi pet owner lives under in 2026 were written by the Supreme Court. Feeding street dogs anywhere but a designated point is barred since 22 August 2025, and the MCD's 735 points across 250 wards are where it is allowed. Since 7 November 2025 a school, college, hospital, sports complex, bus stand or railway station must be fenced against dogs and any found inside are moved to a shelter after sterilisation and vaccination, which is the one setting in which a sterilised dog is not returned to where it was caught; a residential colony is not an institutional area, and its sterilised dogs come back. Housing societies are governed by the Animal Welfare Board of India's guideline rather than a municipal one, which Bonbeno's guide to pets in apartments in India reads beside Mumbai's and Bengaluru's municipal versions, and the metro guide covers what the Delhi Metro allows.

When a pet dies: one municipal pet crematorium, at Dwarka, for Rs 2,000 or Rs 3,000

Delhi got its first municipal pet crematorium in December 2023 and has not added a second. The next one is a line in a proposal for Mukundpur.

The MCD's pet crematorium at Dwarka Sector 29, Furry Friends Forever Memorial Park and Crematorium, 'began operations' in December 2023: a CNG-fired centre 'spanning 700 square meters' with two furnaces rated for 200 and 150 kilograms, a 'daily capacity of 25 animal cremation, 10 private pets and 15 small street animals', and rates of 'Rs 2,000 for animals weighing under 30kg and Rs 3,000 for more'. It was built for about Rs 1 crore and is run with the Green Revolution Foundation, which hires the priest for a pooja and encourages families to plant a tree in the memory garden; private crematoria in the city charge Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000, and the contract allows more furnaces and further branches if daily cases reach 25. The only second site on paper is the proposed Mukundpur complex, which would combine an ABC centre, a shelter and a crematorium.

A pet cremated at Dwarka is booked through the centre, not a portal; Mumbai, by contrast, has three municipal crematoria with online booking and Bengaluru one, as Bonbeno's city reports record. The steps, the paperwork and the private options are in Bonbeno's guide to what to do when your pet dies in India.

What a Delhi pet owner can do with these numbers

Seven things that follow from the record, in the order a new owner meets them.

1. Register the dog on the MCD portal with the vaccination certificate and a photograph of you with the dog. It is mandatory under section 399, costs Rs 500 a year, and an unregistered dog found in public can be detained. Renew within a month of expiry or pay Rs 100 a month.
2. Pick the 24-hour clinic before you need it. Seven of the 38 listed clinics publish round-the-clock opening, in Burari, Saket, Dwarka, Moti Bagh, Vikaspuri and near Dwarka Mor; the Delhi vet directory marks them. Phone before you drive, and check the row is a pet clinic and not a cattle hospital.
3. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite as urgent. The city recorded 25,210 bites in 2024 and one hospital saw 7,376 in a month of 2025 ThePrint, 'Dog bites & rabies deaths.
4. Feed street dogs only at a designated point. The 22 August 2025 order bars feeding elsewhere, and the MCD has named 735 points.
5. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are cleared of dogs; residential colonies get sterilised dogs back.
6. Buy animals only from a shop that can show its Board certificate, and expect that none can. Delhi had no registered pet shop in September 2023 and no compliant centre in December 2024 LawBeat, ''State Arguing That No Breeders…; the pet shops report lists what to ask.
7. Know the one crematorium. Dwarka Sector 29, Rs 2,000 under 30 kilograms and Rs 3,000 above.

What this data does not measure

Each figure here was produced for a different purpose by a different office, and the limits travel with them.

• There is no count of Delhi's street dogs, pet dogs, cats or registered pets. The 2009 census, the 2016 South Delhi survey and the 10 lakh estimate are three different things; the report uses each with its date and divides by none of them without saying so.
• The bite series is the IDSP table's, which runs a year behind and counts what reaches a reporting facility. The RML monthly figures are one hospital's; the report does not add them to the citywide count.
• The sterilisation series mixes three sources. 2019-20 onward is the corporation's own RTI replies; 2014-15 to 2018-19 is VOSD's reconstruction from Hindustan Times reporting, and VOSD's 2021-22 figure differs from the RTI's by 7,865. The figures count dogs 'sterilised and immunised' and do not say how many were re-catches.
• Centre capacities are the corporation's round numbers. Usmanpur and Prahladpur are ranges, plotted at their midpoints; the Dwarka shelter and the Mukundpur complex are plans, not buildings.
• The feeding points are identified, not verified. The Tribune's report does not say how many of the 735 are operational, and the earlier 292 had 14 working.
• The registration figures are the SOP's; the number of certificates issued is unpublished. The portal's live counters, where they appear, are not reproduced here.
• The directory is a window, not a census. Delhi's 38 listings come from a 60-record pull with 22 dropped; the Google Maps pulls are the first 100 results for one search term each, classified by Google's category field, and a 24-hour claim is unverified.

How this report was built

Every figure was read from the document cited, and the Google Maps layer was produced by scripts kept with the report.

1. Dog population figures are from The Tribune's reports of 14 August 2025 The Tribune, 'MCD plans phase-wise action…, Humane Society International's 2016 South Delhi survey abstract, ThePrint's report of 19 October 2026 and the Daily Pioneer's of 3 July 2026; the census figure from the Rajya Sabha reply used in Bonbeno's street dog report.
2. Dog bite figures are Annexure I to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025 as published by the Press Information Bureau; the RML Hospital monthly counts and the national totals from ThePrint's report of 14 August 2025; the suo motu cognisance from The Tribune of 29 July 2025.
3. The sterilisation series is from The Tribune's RTI-based report of 14 August 2025, ThePrint's RTI-based report of 19 October 2026, VOSD's analysis of 18 August 2025, the MCD's report to the Delhi High Court as reported by The Tribune on 1 August 2026 and The Tribune's report of 13 January 2026. Centre capacities are from the Daily Pioneer.
4. The Supreme Court's orders are from All India Radio's reports of 11 August and 7 November 2025 All India Radio News (newsonair.gov.in) and the Supreme Court Observer's of 22 August 2025.
5. The registration rules are the MCD's own SOP for Pet Dog Registration and its citizen portal, read on 2 November 2026, with the enforcement provisions from ThePrint's report of 12 September 2022. The pet shop record is the set of reports used in Bonbeno's pet shops report ThePrint (PTI), 'Pets shop LawBeat, ''State Arguing That No Breeders… ThePrint (PTI), 'HC asks animal welfare…. The crematorium is from ThePrint's report of 27 December 2023. The state veterinary figures are the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha replies used in the Vet Access Index Open Government Data Platform India Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1287.
6. The private clinic figures are counts over Bonbeno's Delhi directory file as checked on 16 October 2026. The Google Maps layer is three Apify runs of the Google Maps Scraper, 'pet shop' on 1 November 2026 and 'pet grooming' and 'pet boarding' on 2 November 2026, 100 results each, classified by Google's primary category by the summary scripts in the research folder.