The organisations include Viniyog Parivar, AHIMSA, Mumbai unit of Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, In Defence of Animals, and All India Animal Welfare Association.

At a press meet held today, Atul Shah of Viniyog Parivar said: ``The BMC has decided to relaunch the barbaric and inhuman act of putting stray dogs to sleep, which is no solution at all. In our petition, we have made the BMC, the state government as well as the Union government the parties we are opposed to.''

Dr Satnam Ahuja of AHIMSA said it was wrong on the part of BMC to say the Animal Birth Control (sterilisation) methods adopted by NGOs were ineffective, because nearly 25,000 dogs had been sterilised by animal lovers since 1994, when the corporation decided to stop its90-year-old practice of electrocuting dogs.

The organisations said they will themselves become `stray' and resort to agitation if the civic body goes ahead with its plan. In the past, animal lovers had met politicians and civic authorities and explained to them the concept of sterilisation, which they claim is far more effective than electrocuting dogs.

Atul Shah said the BMC had spent crores of rupees in the last 90 years to electrocute dogs, but had achieved no success, as the dog population in the city was still around one lakh.

The activists also alleged there was a racket to sell dog mutton-tallow to hotels in Mumbai. Even BMC workers accept money to release dogs and pick up stray dogs, Dr Ahuja alleged. According to the BMC, there are over 60,000 complaints of dogbites in a year. But the NGOS say the figure is misleading. ``If there are 60,000 dog bites a year, and each dog bite must consume at least three injections, there would have been a sale of at least 180,000 anti-rabies vaccines sold bythe Haffkine institute to BMC. The fact is that only 5,000 vaccines are supplied to BMC hospitals each year by Haffkine institute,'' Dr Ahuja pointed out.