In February 2026, a dog padded into a crowded IIT Bombay lecture hall, climbed onto a desk, and sat there surveying the class as if attendance were compulsory for him too. Students filmed the moment, someone posted it on Instagram, and within days, “Dogesh Bhai” had earned more than 2 million views and a nickname that stuck.
The internet moved on, as it always does, but the question his fame raised did not: on a campus, or in a city, with thousands of free-roaming dogs, who is responsible for keeping any one of them safe, identified and cared for?
IIT Bombay’s answer arrived months later, when it began fitting its strays, Dogesh Bhai included, with reflective collars carrying a QR code linked to the animal’s identity, location history and vaccination certificate.
A QR code tells you the dog’s full story
Scan the code and a student or caretaker sees the dog’s own “Aadhaar ID”, a record of where it has been spotted before, its current location, and confirmation of whether it has been vaccinated against rabies.
That single detail decides how the campus treats a dog day to day, whether it is left alone, flagged for a health check, or approached by someone unfamiliar with it.
The system formalises years of quieter work by student volunteers, who have long pushed for sterilisation and vaccination drives as the only sustainable way to keep both dogs and people safe, rather than the removals that other institutions have sometimes resorted to.
A QR-enabled reflective collar helps identify community dogs and track their vaccination and sterilisation records. Photograph: (News18)
The timing was not incidental. In May 2026, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its direction that municipal bodies sterilise, vaccinate and systematically record every stray dog under their watch, while also allowing dogs to be permanently sheltered rather than left near schools, hospitals and railway stations.
The order revived the framework under the Animal Birth Control Rules, and effectively told every civic body in the country that ad hoc management of strays was no longer legally acceptable, digital, auditable records were.
From one campus to an entire city
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation took that instruction and applied the same QR logic IIT Bombay had already tested, but at civic scale. On 20 August, 2026, the BMC signed an agreement with the Ridlan AI Foundation, a Mumbai-based non-profit, to fit sterilised and vaccinated strays with QR-enabled reflective collars across the city.
The foundation’s founder, Akshay Ridlan, built the original version of this idea in 2020, after his own street dog, Kalu, went missing and he realised there was no easy way for a stranger to identify a community dog or know its medical history.
Scanning a dog’s QR collar can reveal its identity, location history and vaccination status. Photograph: (Hindustan Times)
What began as a way to reunite lost dogs with the people who fed them is now official civic infrastructure, the same shift that has let citizen-built real-time rescue apps quietly fill gaps that municipal systems could not close alone.
For Mumbai’s officials, a scanned collar now instantly confirms sterilisation and vaccination status, cutting down repeat captures of the same dog and giving feeders documented proof that a specific animal is accounted for, exactly the kind of governance a Dogesh Bhai figure needs to stay protected once the cameras move on.
5 ways you can help a street dog
For most of us, street dogs are part of everyday life. You see the same one sleeping outside the grocery store, waiting near your building gate, or following the neighbourhood feeder at dinner time. Over time, some even become familiar faces.
Mumbai is expanding QR-enabled collars to help civic authorities track sterilised and vaccinated stray dogs. Photograph: (Facebook)
Keeping these dogs, and the people around them, safe depends partly on what residents do when something goes wrong.
Here are five simple ways you can help:
-
Report a dog that needs attention: If you spot a dog that is injured, unsterilised or behaving unusually aggressively, report it to your municipal corporation’s Animal Birth Control helpline, app or WhatsApp number. Share the exact location, a nearby landmark and, if possible, a photograph. That gives the team a much better chance of finding the right dog.
-
Scan the collar before you act: If the dog is wearing a QR-enabled collar, scan it. In seconds, you may be able to check whether the dog has already been sterilised and vaccinated and whether a caretaker is looking after it. That small scan can prevent an already vaccinated dog from being picked up again unnecessarily.
-
Feed responsibly: If you feed community dogs, use a fixed spot and time, preferably at a designated feeding point away from school gates, staircases, entrances and busy corners. A predictable routine helps dogs too. If your neighbourhood does not have a feeding point, residents can raise the issue with the RWA or ward office and ask for one to be identified.
-
Give your time, if you can: Local animal welfare groups and ABC centres often need help taking dogs to sterilisation camps, caring for them after surgery or keeping vaccination records updated. Even a few hours can make a practical difference. Those who prefer to contribute financially can support trusted organisations running sterilisation and vaccination drives.
-
Know what to do after a bite or scratch: Wash the wound immediately and seek medical care for post-exposure vaccination without delay. Rabies is preventable when treatment is taken in time, so acting quickly matters.
For a dog such as Dogesh Bhai, this is what care looks like after the Instagram reel ends. Someone knows who he is. Someone knows whether he has been vaccinated. Someone can recognise when he is missing, injured or needs help.
Responsible feeding, timely reporting and vaccination can help keep community dogs and people safe. Photograph: (BCS Pune)
His reflective collar may be small, but it represents something every community dog could benefit from: a name, a record and people who know they are responsible for looking out for him.
