The Coalition for a Pro-Animal Protection Act – Sri Lanka

1) Draft Animal Welfare Bill

2) National Dog Spay and Rabies Eradication Programme

1) Draft Animal Welfare Bill

By 2023 when the Draft Animal Welfare Bill was taken up for its first reading in Parliament, it has been made into a legal mess, denying legal protection to animals from cruelties. 

In June 2023 our Coalition intervened and by March 2024 we got Parliamentary Sectoral Oversight Committee (SOC) to approve amendments that would make this bill exemplary, offering legal protection to all animals from cruelties, coupled with fines increased from Rs. 100,000  to 250,000- 500,000 to Rs. 5 million for animal abuse, with the fines doubling for abuse of pregnant animals. 

But even after that Constitutional intervention and clear instructions to the relevant Ministry by the SOC to include the approved amendments, the Bill was prepared by that Ministry for the Second Reading in Parliament, dropping many crucial PARLIAMENTARY SOC-APPROVED AMENDMENTS. 

Fortunately for the Animals of Sri Lanka, the Draft Bill was not taken up for the Second Reading.

The Parliament stands dissolved.  

Attention President, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Justice: This draft Bill must be presented in Parliament again ONLY after including the SOC-APPROVED AMENDMENTS. 

Anyone trying to scuttle the process to pass a Bill that comprehensively provides legal protection to animals citing ANY reason, cannot have animal welfare in their hearts and minds. 

2) The National Dog Spay and Rabies Eradication Programme

All one has to do is to travel round Sri Lanka to witness  the enormous numbers of ownerless dogs, some in shocking conditions, to judge how “efficient and sustainable  result-oriented” the National Dog Spay and Rabies Eradication Programme has been, after functioning under the Health Ministry with contract veterinarians for 15 years since 2008 till now, at a budgetary allocation ranging from Rs.100 million to Rs. 280 million annually.

Right now Rs. 200 million has been allocated to this fruitless, unmonitored, unevaluated activity, to SUSTAIN A BUSSINESS and not an accountable programme. 

The move to have this programme executed by the ONLY State Entity that is responsible for handling and eradicating zoonotic diseases, the  Department of Animal Production and Health (DAPH), having recruited 500 additional veterinarians, was scuttled in 2019, and the Programme was taken back to the Ministry of Health, a State entity responsible for diseases that afflict humans and not animals and hence has no Veterinarians, for BUSINESS AS USUAL.

Attention President, Minister of Health, and Minister of  Livestock: This programme must be immediately vested in the DAPH so it can be made into a scientifically executed,  accountable, sustainable-results-generating programme that can be monitored and evaluated regularly.

Such a scientific, professional, and systematic DAPH-executed accountable programme, coupled with Owned Dog Registration will see significant results in two years towards zero dog population growth and dog rabies control towards eradication.

CPAPA – SL (The Coalition for a Pro-Animal Protection Act – Sri Lanka)