Stray dogs in Maharashtra, 2026: 12,76,399 counted in 2019 and 'increased significantly' since, 15,19,913 dog bites and 33 rabies deaths in 2025, 4,99,553 bites in the first quarter of 2026, a Centre that pays nothing, two cities that sterilise more than a lakh dogs a year between them, and 38.5 percent of the state's veterinary posts empty

Stray dogs in Maharashtra: the state's numbers on one page

Maharashtra's figures come from a census, an assembly, a health department and two corporations, and they do not agree. Sixteen rows, from fourteen sources.

Two rows carry the weight. Maharashtra's health department recorded 15,19,913 dog bites in 2025, nearly double the 8.09 lakh of two years earlier Free Press Journal, and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme's table for the same state, laid before the Lok Sabha, shows 4,85,345 for 2024, less than half the department's 11,41,688. The rest of this report is about a state that sterilises more dogs than any other, counts more bites than any other, and has two official bite figures that differ by six lakh.

How many stray dogs Maharashtra has: 12.76 lakh in 2019, 'increased significantly' since, and only two cities that have counted

The state has one official count, seven years old, and a written admission that it is out of date.

Maharashtra had 12,76,399 stray dogs in the 20th Livestock Census of 2019, 5.0 percent more than the 12,16,093 of 2012, the third-largest count of any state after Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, and 10.4 dogs for every 1,000 people National Commission on Population. In 2012, 28.7 percent of the state's stray dogs were counted in urban areas, against 14.6 percent for India, which is what a state with Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Thane looks like in a household census; the same census counted 1,52,565 stray cattle in 2019. The census is a count by enumerators asking villages and wards, and Bonbeno's street dog report explains why it under-reads cities; it is also the only statewide number there is. On 26 February 2026 the Deputy Chief Minister, Eknath Shinde, told the legislative assembly in a written reply that 'the population of stray dogs has increased significantly in both rural and urban areas' over the past six years, naming Ahilyanagar, Sangli, Raigad and Jalna districts and Vasai-Virar, Bhiwandi and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, without a figure. The 21st Livestock Census had published no stray dog results for any state by 2 November 2026.

Mumbai and Pune: the two counts that exist, and they point in opposite directions from the bites

Mumbai's 2024 survey by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation with Humane Society International found 90,757 street dogs, 62.9 percent of them sterilised, down from 95,172 in 2014, a decline the Deputy Chief Minister repeated to the assembly in December 2025 while reporting 1,28,252 bites in the city in 2024. Pune's corporation counted 1,79,940 street dogs in 2023, 'a decline of 42.87% over the span of five years' from 3,15,000 in 2018, and 30,613 people were bitten in the city in 2025. Bonbeno's reports on Mumbai and Pune take each city's figures apart; what they share is the state's pattern in miniature, fewer dogs counted and more bites recorded. Nagpur, the second capital, has no published count and 9,427 bites in 2024; Thane recorded 47,940 bites in the first quarter of 2026 alone and has never published a survey. Bengaluru's 2023 survey found 71.81 percent of its dogs sterilised and Chennai's 2024 survey 27 percent; Mumbai's 62.9 percent sits between them and no other Maharashtra city has measured its share.

Dog bites and rabies: 15.19 lakh and 33 deaths in 2025 by one table, 4.85 lakh and 14 in 2024 by another

Maharashtra reports more dog bites than any other state in whichever table is used. The two tables are six lakh apart, and the gap is the first thing to understand.

In 2025 the state public health department recorded 15,19,913 dog bite cases and 33 rabies deaths, after 11,41,688 cases and 23 deaths in 2024, and in January to March 2026 it recorded 4,99,553 cases and 19 deaths. The Free Press Journal, reporting the same department's first quarter, gave 'over 4.88 lakh' bites and 19 deaths, with Pune district at 54,662 bites and nine deaths, Thane 47,940 and two, and Mumbai 37,242 and one, and a series that ran from 8.09 lakh bites in 2023 to 15.19 lakh in 2025, with deaths between 23 and 33 a year. The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme's table laid before the Lok Sabha gives Maharashtra 3,93,020 bites in 2022, 4,72,790 in 2023, 4,85,345 in 2024 and 56,538 in January 2025, with 7, 14 and 14 suspected rabies deaths, the most bites of any state in every year and 381.1 per lakh people in 2024 against 265.7 for India. The IDSP counts presentations at reporting public facilities; the department's figure, by the activists who disputed it in May 2026, logs anti-rabies vaccine doses, which would count each visit of a course. Neither description has been confirmed by the department, and Bonbeno's dog bite report prints the IDSP series for every state so that Maharashtra's 381 per lakh can be set beside Tamil Nadu's 623 and Uttar Pradesh's 69.

The 30 lakh that is 23 lakh

On 10 December 2025 the Deputy Chief Minister told the assembly, in a written reply to Sunil Prabhu, that 'Maharashtra has recorded more than 30 lakh cases of dog bites in the last six years' and that '30 persons died of rabies between 2021 and 2023', that local bodies had been told to intensify sterilisation and vaccination, and that the instructions went to urban bodies on 14 November and rural ones on 27 November; the same reply gave Mumbai 1,28,252 bites and Nagpur 9,427 in 2024, which the agency copy worked out to about 1,369 incidents a day across the state. Outlook set the figure against the Press Information Bureau releases and parliamentary replies for the same six years and found 'around 23 lakh', a gap of at least seven lakh that 'has raised concerns about data accuracy'. Two months later the February reply restated the 30 lakh for 2021 to 2023 alone. The three statements are not reconcilable with one another or with either table, and this report prints all of them rather than choosing.

Mumbai's five-year series, the one city record obtained under the Right to Information Act

The BMC's reply to Chetan Kothari's RTI application gave Mumbai 79,252 dog bites in 2021, 1,06,797 in 2022, 61,332 in 2023, 1,28,252 in 2024 and 1,54,017 in 2025, 5,29,650 in five years, and no deaths. Pune's corporation recorded 30,613 in 2025 and its health department 24,803 in the first seven months of 2026, with the two humid monsoon months of June and July carrying 38 percent of the seven-month count, which Bonbeno's Pune report sets out month by month. Between them the two cities account for about 12 percent of the state's 2025 total, which means the other 88 percent of Maharashtra's bites happen in places whose dogs have never been counted.

The Animal Birth Control programme: Mumbai's 4,34,529 surgeries, Pune's 57,852 a year, a central grant of zero, and the orders every local body now works under

Sterilisation in Maharashtra is a municipal programme paid for by municipalities. The state passes orders down; the Centre passes advisories.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has sterilised 4,34,529 street dogs since 1994, 25,211 of them between April 2024 and March 2025, and in April 2026 appointed nine agencies to sterilise 45,000 dogs a year, 1,35,000 over three years, for about Rs 23 crore Free Press Journal; the same plan was later described as Rs 23.31 crore to sterilise 33,671 dogs, the 2024 survey's unsterilised count, and Bonbeno's Mumbai report prints both versions. Pune sterilised 57,852 dogs in 2023-24 and 56,511 in 2024-25, 'over one lakh canines' in two years, as the state's industries minister told the legislative council, and has set aside Rs 37 crore for 2026-27. Mumbai Live's report of the state's bite figures adds that 'between January 2023 and March 2026, 63,137 dogs were sterilised under ongoing animal birth control programmes', without naming the body or the area, in a passage about the BMC's survey; no statewide sterilisation total has been published by the state itself. Mumbai's surveyed sterilised share, 62.9 percent, is below the 70 percent the Animal Welfare Board's module and the department's advisory of July 2025 set as the working target, and Pune has never measured its share OpenCity, 'Mumbai street dogs survey.

What the Centre pays, and what the Supreme Court ordered

The Animal Welfare Board of India released no ABC grant to any state in 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 or 2024-25, as the Lok Sabha was told in December 2025; the revised scheme from 2025-26 offers Rs 800 per dog sterilised and Rs 600 per cat to bodies that follow the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023. Those Rules make the local authority responsible for sterilising and vaccinating its street dogs through recognised organisations, require that a dog be released in the same locality it was caught in under rule 11(19), and bar relocation. The Supreme Court's order of 22 August 2025 kept the shelter directions of 11 August but restored release after sterilisation, confined feeding to designated spots in each ward, required a helpline in every municipality and impleaded every state; its order of 7 November 2025 told every local body to fence schools, colleges, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands and railway stations and to move dogs found there to shelters after sterilisation and vaccination; and on 19 May 2026 it upheld those directions against releasing sterilised dogs back to such premises. Maharashtra passed the November order to its urban bodies on 14 November and rural bodies on 27 November 2025, issued a government resolution on 5 January 2026 to keep stray dogs out of premises under the tourism department, and told the assembly in February that orders to implement the ABC Rules had gone out. The BMC's own guidelines for pet and street dogs, feeders, housing societies and institutions, signed by the Municipal Commissioner on 20 March 2025, are the one city-level document that sets all of this out in fourteen pages.

Veterinary care: the most registered vets of any state, the largest vacancy, and the two longest private clinic lists in Bonbeno's directory

Maharashtra has more veterinarians on the register than any other state and more empty government posts than any other.

Maharashtra had 11,257 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, up from 10,204 in 2021 and the most of any state, and 2,165 of its 5,622 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant in December 2025, 38.5 percent against 25.8 percent for India and the largest absolute vacancy in the country. Its 4,856 government institutions are 39 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics, 1,976 dispensaries and 2,841 aid centres, and its 80 operational mobile veterinary units cover 0.2 per lakh livestock against the central norm of one and the national average of 0.7. With 3,30,79,818 livestock in the 2019 census, the state has 2,939 livestock per registered vet against India's 6,106 and 8.8 vets per lakh people against 6.3, which places it 15th of 35 states and union territories in Bonbeno's Vet Access Index; its five recognised veterinary colleges have 455 approved seats. The ratio is good and the vacancy is bad, and the two are not a contradiction: the state trains and registers vets who do not fill its government posts.

The private layer in Mumbai and Pune

Bonbeno's Pune vet directory lists 57 clinics and hospitals, the longest list of the eight cities it covers, 9 of which publish round-the-clock opening; its Mumbai directory lists 19, 5 open 24 hours, each entry checked against its Google listing in October 2026 for an address, a live phone number and the hours the clinic itself publishes. The Google Maps pull of 1 November 2026 returned 94 pet stores in the first 100 results for 'pet shop' in Mumbai and 91 in Pune, and the pulls of 2 November 72 groomers and 73 boarders in Mumbai and 45 and 76 in Pune. What a consultation, a vaccination or a surgery costs is in Bonbeno's guide to what a vet visit costs in India.

Pets and the rules: two city licences, the one state that reported on pet shops, two unregistered native breeds, and a circular on crematoria

Maharashtra has no state pet law. Its corporations license dogs under their own Acts, its Animal Welfare Board registers shops under central Rules, and its civic bodies were told in 2025 to build crematoria.

Mumbai licenses pet dogs under section 191B of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, exclusively online, and its June 2025 guidelines made clear that an unlicensed dog is illegal, that feeding is lawful at designated spots and that societies cannot ban pets Free Press Journal; Pune registers them for Rs 50 a year or Rs 500 for ten and had issued 3,522 dog and 162 cat licences by January 2024. No state rule sets a fee or a fine, so a dog in Thane, Nashik or Nagpur is licensed, or not, under that corporation's own bye-laws, and Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India walks the portals that exist. Housing societies work under the Animal Welfare Board of India's guideline and, in Mumbai, the BMC's fourteen-page version of it; Bonbeno's guide to pets in apartments in India reads both.

Pet shops and breeders: the one state that reported, and a court still waiting for the number

Maharashtra is the one state the Animal Welfare Board of India said, on 28 December 2023, had sent the progress of implementing the Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules, 2017 and the Pet Shop Rules, 2018, though the number of establishments registered 'has not been provided' by any state. The Rules require every shop that sells an animal, and every breeder, to hold a certificate from the State Animal Welfare Board; in August 2021 the Bombay High Court, hearing Shivraj Patne's public interest litigation, directed the state to say how many pet shops operated with valid permits and the Board how many were registered and operating as per the Rules, and no figure has been published since. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause and the one state register that exists, Tamil Nadu's 399 entries; Maharashtra's does not.

Native breeds: the Mahratta Greyhound and the Kaikadi, unregistered

Maharashtra has two dog breeds named for it on the standard list, the Mahratta Greyhound and the dog of the Kaikadi people, and neither is registered with ICAR's National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources nor recognised by the Kennel Club of India. The six Indian breeds that are registered, three of them Tamil Nadu's and one Karnataka's Mudhol Hound, are in Bonbeno's report on the register; the Caravan and Pashmi hounds of the Deccan plateau, which breeders in the state keep, are not on the Bureau's list either. The dog most Maharashtrians share a street with is the Indian pariah dog, which Bonbeno's breed page covers.

When a pet dies: a circular to every civic body, three crematoria in Mumbai, one in Pune and a Rs 9.50 crore project in Nagpur

On 25 April 2025 the state government directed every municipal corporation, council and nagar panchayat to develop cremation grounds for pets and animals, near dumping grounds, walled and secured, for cows, cats, dogs and white mice, with a charge permitted and no timeline. Mumbai already had one: the BMC's pet incinerator at the Evershine Nagar pound in Malad West, open since September 2023, free from 10 am to 6 pm with address proof, the first of three units built for Rs 17 crore including five years of operation; Deonar, on PNG for animals up to 500 kg, and Mahalaxmi, electric for animals up to 50 kg, have operated since 1 April 2026 with online booking against the municipal licence. Pune's incinerator near Naidu Hospital opened in November 2019 as the first civic-run animal crematorium in the state, at Rs 2,000 for a dog or cat, Rs 3,000 for a large animal and strays free, and no later rate card has been published. Nagpur's corporation sanctioned an animal crematorium at Bhandewadi on 23 May 2023 at Rs 3.50 crore, revised to Rs 9.50 crore, and had not reported it open by November 2026, while an NGO unit on Hingna Road was operating by June 2026. Bonbeno's cremation report has every facility's fee and hours, and its guide to when your pet dies in India the steps.

What a Maharashtra pet owner can do with these numbers

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

1. License the dog with your corporation. In Mumbai it is mandatory under section 191B and online only; in Pune it is Rs 500 for ten years; elsewhere, ask the corporation, because no state rule applies.
2. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite as urgent. The state recorded 15,19,913 bites and 33 deaths in 2025; Pune district alone had nine deaths in the first quarter of 2026.
3. Pick the 24-hour clinic before you need it. Nine of Pune's 57 listed clinics and five of Mumbai's 19 publish round-the-clock opening in Bonbeno's directories; phone before you drive.
4. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are fenced and cleared to shelters under the 7 November 2025 order; a residential lane gets its sterilised dogs back under rule 11(19).
5. Feed only at a designated spot, and ask for one if there is none. The 22 August 2025 order requires them in every ward; Mumbai's guidelines and Pune's 88 spots are the two cities that have complied in writing.
6. Buy an animal only from a shop or breeder that can show its Board certificate. Maharashtra reported on the Rules and published no register; the pet shops report lists what to ask.
7. Know where the crematorium is before the day. Mumbai's three, Pune's one at its 2019 rates, and the state circular that tells every other civic body to build one.

What this data does not measure

Each figure here was produced by a different office for a different purpose, and the gaps are specific.

• The only statewide dog count is seven years old, is a household-enumerator estimate that under-reads cities, and the state has said in writing that it is out of date without replacing it. The 21st Livestock Census had published no state stray dog table by 2 November 2026.
• The two bite series measure different things. The IDSP table counts presentations at reporting public facilities and ends in January 2025; the state department's figure is about 2.4 times larger for 2024 and may count vaccine doses, as its critics say and the department has not confirmed. The dataset carries both and computes nothing across them.
• The Deputy Chief Minister's 30 lakh is not reconcilable with the official 23 lakh for the same six years, nor with the February reply that gave 30 lakh for three years; all three are printed, none is adopted.
• No statewide sterilisation total exists. Mumbai's and Pune's figures are the corporations' own and neither is reconciled to a survey; the 63,137 in the Mumbai Live report is unattributed to a body or area.
• Rabies deaths are the department's count of suspected deaths; the IDSP's figures for the same years are lower, and India's estimate, 5,726 a year from the ICMR survey, implies every state's record is an undercount.
• The pet shop register was asked for by the High Court in 2021 and has not been published; 'the one state that reported' means a progress letter, not a number.
• The directories and Google Maps pulls are windows on two cities, not the state: Mumbai and Pune hold under a fifth of Maharashtra's people, and Nagpur, Nashik, Thane and Aurangabad have no comparable layer here.
• Pet spending per household is not in this report because the one source for it, the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey's unit-level data, had not been obtained by publication.

How this report was built

Every figure was read from the document cited, and the state 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 and Table 79 of the 19th Livestock Census, with per-1,000 rates from the National Commission on Population's projections; the assembly replies from the Free Press Journal of 27 February 2026, ThePrint and Deccan Herald of 10 and 13 December 2025 Deccan Herald (PTI) and Outlook's check of 10 December 2025; the city surveys from OpenCity and Punekar News.
2. The bite and rabies figures are from Annexure I and II to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025, Mumbai Live of 27 April 2026, the Free Press Journal of 24 May 2026 and its report of the BMC's RTI reply of 23 October 2026; the national estimate from the WHO India page.
3. The sterilisation, grant and order figures are from the Free Press Journal of 14 April 2026, ThePrint of 11 July 2025, the Lok Sabha reply of 2 December 2025, the PIB release of 19 August 2025, the Animal Birth Control Rules as gazetted, the Supreme Court's orders of 22 August and 7 November 2025 as published Supreme Court of India, News On AIR of 19 May 2026 and the BMC's guidelines of 20 March 2025.
4. The veterinary figures are from the Lok Sabha replies of 2 December 2025, 11 February 2025 and 28 March 2023 Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1287 Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 4449, the Rajya Sabha annexure on data.gov.in and the Veterinary Council of India's college list; the directory and Google Maps figures are counts over Bonbeno's own files and Apify runs.
5. The licence, pet shop, breed and crematorium figures are from the BMC's FAQ, the Free Press Journal of 19 June 2025, Punekar News of 12 January 2024, the AWBI circular of 28 December 2023, the Pet Shop Rules, the Free Press Journal of 26 August 2021, Wikipedia's breed list, the Free Press Journal of 26 April 2025, 15 September 2023 and 16 April 2026 Free Press Journal Free Press Journal, The Bridge Chronicle and the Nagpur Municipal Corporation's resolution. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 2 November 2026 through an Apify run of Google's India results for the focus keyword.