Stray dogs in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, 2026: 3,164 counted in 2019 and none of them in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, 7,926 dog bites in 2024 and no rabies death, a sterilisation tender Silvassa called eight times, eight more calls in Diu and a notice to move its dogs out of the district, the only territory missing from the Supreme Court's affidavits, and five registered vets

Stray dogs in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: the territory's numbers on one page

Three districts, two former territories and one record that is thinner than any other in this series. Sixteen rows, each from the document named, and several of them an absence.

Two rows carry the weight. The 2019 census counted no stray dogs at all in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the larger half of the territory, and the Supreme Court recorded on 7 November 2025 that every state and union territory in India except this one had filed its compliance affidavit. The rest of this report is about a territory of 13.56 lakh people whose dog bites are rising faster than India's, and whose councils in Silvassa and Diu have spent sixteen months inviting tenders for a sterilisation programme that, on the published record, nobody has yet been hired to run.

How many stray dogs Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu has: 3,164 in Daman and Diu, and a zero

The census still counts the two former territories separately, and one of them returned nothing.

Daman and Diu had 3,164 stray dogs in the 20th Livestock Census of 2019, 179 percent more than the 1,134 of 2012, in the same years India's count fell 10.7 percent; Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which had 2,173 in 2012, reported 0 stray dogs and 0 stray cattle in 2019 Department of Animal Husbandry. The census was taken before the two territories were merged in January 2020, so it prints them as two rows, and this report keeps them that way. Against the National Commission on Population's projections, Daman and Diu's count is 7.6 dogs for every 1,000 people, below India's 11.5 and below neighbouring Gujarat's 13.7 and Maharashtra's 10.4. In 2012, 1,427 of Dadra and Nagar Haveli's 2,173 street dogs were counted in urban areas and 746 in rural ones, 65.7 percent urban, more than four times India's 14.6 percent, while Daman and Diu's were 23.1 percent urban.

Dadra and Nagar Haveli's zero: a blank, not an absence of dogs

The zero is not an empty census. The same 20th census counted 48,404 livestock in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 3,284 in Daman and Diu, so enumerators went to its villages and recorded cattle, buffalo and goats, and left the stray animal columns at nothing. Bonbeno's street dog report reads the census as one informant's estimate per village or ward rather than a headcount. Its own health department counted 938 people bitten by dogs in Dadra and Nagar Haveli in 2012, and the national table has recorded thousands a year since. Bonbeno's street dog report lists Delhi's identical figures in both censuses and Arunachal Pradesh's forty-fold rise beside this zero as artefacts of the same method. No municipal or territory dog survey for Silvassa, Daman or Diu could be found, so the territory has no published count of its dogs that covers all three districts.

Dog bites and rabies in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: 7,926 bites in 2024 and no deaths

The national table and one local study are the whole record, and they cover different areas.

The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha gives the merged territory 4,169 dog bite cases in 2022, 5,921 in 2023, 7,926 in 2024 and 620 in January 2025, and no suspected rabies death in any of them. That is a rise of 90.1 percent in two years against India's 69.7 percent. On the 13.56 lakh people Bonbeno's dog bite report uses for the territory, 2024 works out to 584.5 bites per lakh, seventh of 36 states and territories, behind Ladakh, Sikkim, Goa, Puducherry, Chandigarh and Tamil Nadu (623.2) and ahead of Gujarat (542.8), Karnataka (530.7), Maharashtra (381.1) and India (265.7). The same report divides the bites by the census dogs and gets 250.5 bites a year for every 100 counted dogs, the highest in India; it is the census zero that produces it, because Dadra and Nagar Haveli's people are in the numerator and none of its dogs are in the denominator.

A study by the territory's Directorate of Medical and Health Services and Shri Vinoba Bhave Civil Hospital in Silvassa counted 938 dog bites reported in Dadra and Nagar Haveli in 2012, a crude rate of 26.05 per 10,000 people, from the IDSP's weekly records. Of those, 67.3 percent were seen at the district hospital, 13.3 percent at the Khanvel community health centre and 9.5 percent at the Amboli primary health centre; 39.6 percent of victims were children aged up to 15, 74.9 percent were male, 63.5 percent were bitten on the legs and 2.7 percent needed admission. The study counted 383 bites in the pre-monsoon weeks, 250 in the monsoon and 305 after it, and printed the last as 35.5 percent in its text and 32.5 percent in its table; 305 of 938 is 32.5. It is the only published bite count for any part of the territory below the national table, and Daman and Diu has no study of its own. The 2012 figure covers one former territory and the national table covers both, so the two are printed in the dataset and not compared.

Rabies: zeros in every table, and nothing beneath them

No human rabies death appears in any record for the territory: the IDSP's Annexure II gives zero for 2022, 2023, 2024 and January 2025, and the 2012 study found 'no case of rabies' and credited it to the availability of vaccine at the territory's health units. No territory document declaring Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu rabies-free could be found, and no dog in the territory has a published rabies test result. The zeros therefore record that no death was reported, which is a weaker statement than that none occurred; the ICMR estimates 5,726 rabies deaths a year in India against the 54 the national table recorded in 2024. No rabies action plan for the territory could be found, though Puducherry's is published on the National Rabies Control Programme's site.

The Animal Birth Control programme in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: sixteen tender calls and no published contract

Silvassa and Diu each invited bids eight times in 2025 and 2026, and Daman's last tender on record dates from 2022.

Silvassa Municipal Council invited online tenders for 'Castration, Spaying and Immunization on stray Dogs in Silvassa Municipal Council Area (2025 - 26)' on 23 April 2025, at an estimated cost of Rs 11,64,900 with earnest money of Rs 23,300 and a time limit of 60 days. It called the same work again on 8 May, 28 May, 27 June and 10 July 2025, 9 September and 14 November 2025 UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman…, the seventh call still at Rs 11,64,900. The eighth call, notice 53 of 2025-26 dated 25 February 2026, raised the estimate to Rs 24,71,000 and the earnest money to Rs 49,420, with bids opening on 3 March 2026. A tender called eight times usually means no acceptable bid arrived; the notices do not say, and no award, contractor, rate per dog or number of dogs could be found published. The notices give no target number of dogs either, so the estimate cannot be turned into a rate. For scale, the Centre's revised scheme pays Rs 800 a dog, Gurugram's 2025 contract Rs 700 and Puducherry's Rs 1,650.

Diu Municipal Council issued its own e-tender for 'Castration, Spayining & Immunisation on stray dogs' under the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023 on 5 February 2026, with earnest money of Rs 15,000, and was on its eighth call by 21 August 2026, with earnest money raised to Rs 30,690; the council's notice list shows all eight calls, a corrigendum, and an earlier tender of September 2022 still under the ABC Rules of 2001. Daman Municipal Council's last tender on the territory's site is from January 2022, for 'Castration & Spaying on stray dogs in Daman Municipal area under rule ABC 2001 & 2010', for 12 months with earnest money of Rs 39,960; the territory site's search for stray dogs shows no later Daman call. At the 70 percent coverage the Centre's advisory sets, even the census's 3,164 dogs in Daman and Diu alone would need about 2,200 sterilised. The Animal Welfare Board released no ABC grant to any state or territory in the four years to 2024-25.

Diu's notice: catch the dogs and take them out of the district

On 12 December 2025 Diu Municipal Council invited quotations 'To catch the stray dogs from Public places in DMC area and to keep them safe and healthy at humanly relocation outside Diu District', priced per dog, and its conditions required that 'All caught dogs must be related in safe and humanly environment to the shelter house located outside Diu District'. The same notice asks the agency to run a 24-hour helpline, to remove dogs from 'hospitals, roads, schools, institutes, offices', and to comply with the ABC Rules and the Supreme Court's directions. Diu, on this notice, has no dog shelter inside the district, and its caught dogs are to be relocated to one in another. The Supreme Court's order of 7 November 2025 sends dogs found in institutional premises to shelters, but rule 11(19) of the ABC Rules, 2023 returns a sterilised dog to the locality it was caught in, and the 22 August 2025 order restored that for healthy dogs. A notice that names roads alongside institutions and a destination in another district does not say how it squares the two, and no result of the quotation was found.

The courts: the one territory without a Supreme Court affidavit

The Supreme Court named this territory in its own order, and no other court has published one about its dogs.

The Supreme Court's order of 22 August 2025 in the suo motu case on stray dogs directed every state and union territory to file a compliance affidavit, and its order of 27 October 2025 repeated the direction; on 7 November 2025 the Court recorded that 'all States and all Union Territories, except the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, have submitted their respective compliance affidavits before this Court'. Court Book's report of the hearing of 3 November said the territory 'must file their compliance affidavit within two days, before November 7, 2025', so the deadline passed without one. At a hearing on 7 January 2026 the amicus curiae told the bench 'Some states/UTs like Sikkim, Dadar and Nagar Haveli - no point in adding theirs' while explaining what his summary covered; the live report does not say why. No affidavit from the territory, filed then or later, could be read, and the amicus's summary annexed to the November order could not cover what was never filed. On 19 May 2026 the Court upheld its directions and told the High Courts to monitor them.

No order of the Bombay High Court, which hears cases from the territory, on its stray dogs could be found, unlike the Madras High Court's suo motu case that named Puducherry's Chief Secretary in June 2026. No compensation for a dog bite has been set for the territory by any court, scheme or government order that could be found. Elsewhere in this series, the Punjab and Haryana High Court fixed Rs 10,000 a tooth mark for Haryana, Karnataka pays Rs 5,000 for a bite and Rs 5 lakh for a death, and Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, like this territory, have no such rule.

Veterinary care in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: five registered vets and three empty posts

The territory has the thinnest veterinary register per person in India.

The merged territory had 5 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, and 3 of its 4 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant in December 2025, 75 percent against 25.8 percent for India. Its 15 government institutions are 1 veterinary hospital or polyclinic, 2 dispensaries and 12 aid centres, and it had no operational mobile veterinary unit in January 2025. On Bonbeno's Vet Access Index, which adds the two halves' 51,688 livestock, that is 10,338 livestock per registered vet against India's 6,106, and 0.4 registered vets for every lakh people, the lowest ratio of all 36 states and territories, below Chandigarh's 1.0 and Jharkhand's 2.4 and against 6.3 for India, 6.6 for Gujarat and 8.8 for Maharashtra. The territory has no recognised veterinary college. A register counts enrolments, and vets who practise in Silvassa may be registered in Gujarat or Maharashtra, so the number of vets actually practising in the territory may differ from five; no count of them exists. Bonbeno's vet directories cover eight cities, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, of which Mumbai is the nearest to Silvassa and Daman and Ahmedabad to Diu; what a consultation costs is in Bonbeno's guide to what a vet visit costs in India.

Pets and the rules in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: nothing on the record

For a pet owner the territory's published rules are the national ones, because no local licence, register or service could be found.

No dog licence fee, bye-law or registration count could be found for Silvassa, Daman or Diu, while Ahmedabad, the nearest of Bonbeno's directory cities to Diu, asks Rs 2,000 a year. Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India covers the portals that exist elsewhere, and its guide to pets in apartments in India covers the rules housing societies work under. PETA India's letter of 14 May 2020 to every state's animal husbandry department annexed lists of pet shops trading without registration for many states, and none for Dadra and Nagar Haveli or Daman and Diu. The Pet Shop Rules, 2018 require every shop to hold a certificate from the State Animal Welfare Board, and the Animal Welfare Board's circular of December 2023 recorded that no state or territory except Maharashtra had reported how many it had registered. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause.

Native breeds and end of life: none, and the pariah dog

No dog breed is named for the territory on the national register of Indian breeds, and none of the Indian breeds recognised by the Kennel Club of India comes from it; Bonbeno's report on the register carries the six. The dog on most streets in Silvassa, Daman and Diu is the Indian pariah dog, which copes with the humid coast and the heavy monsoon. No pet crematorium could be found in any district; Bonbeno's guide to when your pet dies in India covers burial and cremation, and its cremation report covers the services that exist, city by city.

What a pet owner in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu can do with these numbers

Six things that follow from the record, in the order an owner meets them.

1. Vaccinate your dog against rabies every year and keep the card. The territory has 5 registered vets and no mobile unit, so book ahead.
2. After a bite, go to a government hospital the same day. In 2012 two in three victims in Dadra and Nagar Haveli were seen at the district hospital in Silvassa.
3. Ask your municipal council whether its sterilisation tender was awarded. Silvassa called it eight times and Diu eight Diu district website.
4. Ask where Diu's caught dogs go. The council's notice names a shelter outside the district.
5. Ask what the territory filed in the Supreme Court. It was the only one missing on 7 November 2025.
6. Buy an animal only from a shop or breeder that shows its State Board certificate. The Rules require one.

What this data does not measure

This territory's record is thinner than any other state's in the series, and each gap is named here rather than filled.

• There is no count of the territory's dogs. The 2019 census gives 3,164 for Daman and Diu and a zero for Dadra and Nagar Haveli that is a blank, not a finding; the 21st Livestock Census had published no state table by 11 November 2026, and no municipal survey exists.
• The national bite table counts the merged territory as one row, so it cannot say whether the rise since 2022 is in Silvassa, Daman or Diu; the only local study is from 2012 and covers Dadra and Nagar Haveli alone.
• The rabies zeros are reports, not tests. No territory source declares the territory rabies-free and no dog sample result is published.
• No tender result was read. Whether Silvassa, Diu or Daman ever hired an agency, at what rate and for how many dogs, is not on the record; a third-party tender-result page returned an error and was not used.
• No affidavit, compensation rule or High Court order exists in print for the territory.
• No pet licence, pet shop register, private clinic count or crematorium was found, and pet spending per household is not here because the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey's unit-level data had not been obtained.

How this report was built

Every figure was read from the document cited, and the territory's rows are the same rows Bonbeno's national reports computed from the parliamentary annexes.

1. The census figures are from the Rajya Sabha statement of 6 August 2025, Table 79 of the 19th Livestock Census and the Lok Sabha reply of 28 March 2023, with per-1,000 rates from the National Commission on Population's projections.
2. The bite figures are from Annexure I and II to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025, Khan and colleagues' study in the Journal of Applied and Natural Science and the WHO India page.
3. The programme figures are from Silvassa Municipal Council's tender notices Silvassa Municipal Council Silvassa Municipal Council and notice lists UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman…, Diu Municipal Council's notices Diu Municipal Council Diu Municipal Council Diu district website and Daman Municipal Council's notice, read as text or, where scanned, as page images, with PIB and the Lok Sabha reply of 2 December 2025.
4. The court figures are from the Supreme Court's orders Supreme Court of India, Court Book, LiveLaw, News On AIR and the ABC Rules; the veterinary figures from the Lok Sabha replies Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1287, the Rajya Sabha annexure and the VCI list.
5. The pet figures are from PETA India's letter, the Pet Shop Rules and the AWBI circular. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 11 November 2026 through an Apify run of Google's India results for 'stray dogs in silvassa'; the run for 'stray dogs in daman' returned no box. Prices are in Indian rupees.