Estimated free-ranging (stray) dog population, India
1.53 crore, about 15.3 million. The district level dataset published by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying totals 1,53,04,977 across 709 districts.
Reported for 2019
Source: Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, 20th Livestock Census. Also cited as 1.53 crore in the joint advisory of the Secretaries of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, 16 July 2025.
Caveat: This comes from the Livestock Census, an exercise designed to count owned livestock. Stray dogs are recorded alongside that count rather than surveyed on their own, so the number is a by-product of a different exercise and depends on what enumerators saw during a household visit. It is now seven years old. The 21st Livestock Census was launched on 25 October 2024 and its report had not been published when this file was compiled, so the 2019 figure remains the latest official count.
www.dahd.gov.in/sites/default/files/2023-11/FinalDistrictWiseStrayCattleDog.xlsx
Estimated stray cattle population, India
50.23 lakh, about 5.02 million. The same district dataset totals 50,23,025.
Reported for 2019
Source: Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, 20th Livestock Census. The joint Secretaries' advisory of 16 July 2025 gives it as an estimated 50 lakh.
Caveat: Same method and same limitations as the dog figure. A Press Information Bureau release has given the combined stray dog and cattle total as 203.31 lakh, while the district file published by the department sums to 203.28 lakh, a small discrepancy that has never been reconciled publicly.
awbi.gov.in/uploads/regulations/175439942841Joint%20Advisory%20Secretaries%2016.
Dog bite cases reported through national health surveillance
21,89,909 in 2022, 30,52,521 in 2023, 37,15,713 in 2024, and 4,29,664 in January 2025
Reported for 2022 to 2025
Source: Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme and Integrated Health Information Platform, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as tabled in Lok Sabha by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying on 1 April 2025. Data stated as on 27 February 2025.
Caveat: These are bites recorded at health facilities that report into the national portal, not a count of bites that happened. Part of the year on year rise reflects better reporting rather than more bites. The same government gave 30,43,339 for 2023 in an answer of 6 August 2024 and 30,52,521 for 2023 in the answer of 1 April 2025, because states continue to back-enter data. The tables also do not separate bites by pet dogs from bites by street dogs. The Animal Welfare Board wrote to medical institutions on 4 August 2025 asking for that distinction to be recorded, which confirms it was not being recorded before.
pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2117342
Dog bite cases in children under 15 years
5,19,704
Reported for 2024
Source: Integrated Health Information Platform, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, stated in a written reply in Lok Sabha and released by the Press Information Bureau on 4 February 2025.
Caveat: Subject to the same reporting limits as the headline bite figure, and again with no split between pet and street dogs.
pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2099680
Estimated animal bites per year, modelled from a national household survey
About 9.1 million animal bites a year, from a weighted annual incidence of 6.6 per 1,000 population (95% CI 5.7 to 7.6). Dog bites specifically were 5.6 per 1,000 (4.8 to 6.6).
Reported for survey conducted 2022 to 2023, published 2025
Source: ICMR National Institute of Epidemiology and collaborators, community based cross sectional survey of 3,37,808 people in 78,807 households across 60 districts in 15 states, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2025, volume 25, pages 126 to 134.
Caveat: This is a modelled estimate from a sample, not a count, and it carries a stated uncertainty range. It is roughly two and a half times the number of bites the surveillance system recorded for 2024, which is the clearest available measure of how much goes unreported. It counts all animal bites, so it is not directly comparable with a dog bite figure.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39362224/
Human rabies deaths reported through national health surveillance
21 in 2022, 50 in 2023, 54 in 2024, and 1 in January 2025
Reported for 2022 to 2025
Source: Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme and Integrated Health Information Platform, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, tabled in Lok Sabha on 1 April 2025. Data stated as on 27 February 2025.
Caveat: These are deaths formally reported as human rabies through the surveillance system. They are between one and two orders of magnitude below every published estimate of actual rabies mortality in India, including the government's own. Human rabies is not a notifiable disease everywhere in India, most rabies deaths occur outside hospitals, and few are laboratory confirmed. Treat this as a count of what the system captured, not of what happened.
pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2117342
Deaths attributed to dog bite
286
Reported for 2023
Source: Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1290, 30 July 2024, citing Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme data.
Caveat: This sits alongside the 50 human rabies deaths reported for the same year through the same surveillance system, and the two have never been reconciled in any public document. They appear to count different things, and the government has not published a definition for either.
www.dahd.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-10/LS1290.pdf
Estimated human rabies deaths per year, modelled from a national household survey
5,726 a year (95% uncertainty interval 3,967 to 7,350)
Reported for survey conducted 2022 to 2023, published 2025
Source: ICMR National Institute of Epidemiology and collaborators, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2025, volume 25, pages 126 to 134.
Caveat: A probability decision-tree model applied to survey data, not a body count, with a wide stated uncertainty range. It is roughly a hundred times the surveillance figure for the same period and roughly a quarter of the older WHO derived figure the government still quotes. All three numbers are in circulation at once.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39362224/
Older estimate of annual human rabies deaths in India, still quoted by the government
20,565 a year, described as about 35% of an estimated 59,000 dog mediated rabies deaths worldwide
Reported for attributed to a study conducted in 2004
Source: Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2373, 6 August 2024, attributing the figure to the World Health Organization.
Caveat: The government flags in the same answer that this rests on a study conducted in 2004. It is more than twenty years old and is roughly four times the 2022 to 2023 survey estimate, yet it remains the number most often repeated in news coverage and campaign material on both sides of the stray dog argument.
www.dahd.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-10/LS2373.pdf
Dogs sterilised under state programmes, three financial years to mid 2024
24.53 lakh, about 2.45 million
Reported for three financial years reported as at August 2024
Source: Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2373, 6 August 2024, based on information received from states.
Caveat: Self-reported by state governments with no independent verification and no national register of sterilised dogs. It cannot be converted into a coverage percentage: the denominator is a 2019 count, dogs sterilised in one year may be recounted, and there is no way to tell how the sterilisations were distributed geographically. Sterilising two lakh dogs in one city and none in the next district produces the same national total as spreading them evenly, with very different results.
www.dahd.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-10/LS2373.pdf
Anti-rabies vaccine doses administered to dogs, three financial years to mid 2024
101.54 lakh doses in dogs, plus 12.85 lakh doses in other animals
Reported for three financial years reported as at August 2024
Source: Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2373, 6 August 2024, based on information received from states.
Caveat: Doses administered, not dogs protected. Rabies vaccination in dogs generally requires annual boosters, so a dose count over three years cannot be read as a share of the dog population that is currently immune.
www.dahd.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-10/LS2373.pdf
Anti-rabies shots given to dog bite victims
46,54,398
Reported for 2023
Source: National Centre for Disease Control, as stated by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying in Lok Sabha on 30 July 2024.
Caveat: A course of post exposure prophylaxis is several shots per person, so this is not a count of people treated. It is higher than the number of dog bite cases recorded for the same year, which is consistent with multiple doses per patient rather than with more patients.
www.dahd.gov.in/sites/default/files/2024-10/LS1290.pdf
National sterilisation coverage target set by the central government
At least 70% of the stray dog population
Reported for 2025
Source: Joint advisory of the Secretaries of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to all states and union territories, 16 July 2025.
Caveat: A target stated in an advisory, not a statutory requirement, and the same advisory records that infrastructure in many urban areas remains inadequate. No national figure exists for actual coverage achieved against it, so the gap between the target and reality cannot be measured from published data.
awbi.gov.in/uploads/regulations/175439942841Joint%20Advisory%20Secretaries%2016.
Measured change in street dog population in one city, Bengaluru
A 10% reduction in the street dog population in 2023 compared with 2019, with the neutering percentage up by 20
Reported for surveys in 2019 and 2023
Source: Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, as reported by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying in Lok Sabha on 1 April 2025.
Caveat: One city, and the survey method was not published in the answer. The government said in the very same reply that it has not carried out any formal national assessment of whether the Animal Birth Control programme controls stray dog numbers. This single city result is therefore the strongest published Indian evidence on the question, which is itself the finding.
pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2117342
