Those who adopt destitute cow progeny to get honorarium
By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 2 Aug: Chief Secretary Radha Raturi today reviewed the progress on construction of Gaushalas in the state at the Secretariat, here. Raturi directed the Animal Husbandry Department to immediately prepare guidelines to launch a scheme of giving a fixed honorarium to people who adopt destitute bovines in the state soon. She said that the administration and the general public will have to work together with full sensitivity and humanity so that not a single destitute animal is seen on the roads of the state.
Raturi also directed the Panchayati Raj Department to send a proposal to the Finance Department to open a financial head of account in this regard as soon as possible to use the amount of Rs 10 crore released for the construction of Gaushalas across the state. She directed them to set up a committee to monitor the arrangement and condition of the destitute cow progeny in the Gaushalas and on the roads. The Chief Secretary also issued instructions to ensure mandatory ear tagging of the animals reared by the people and cattle keepers in the rural areas, so that the owners of stray and destitute cows and their progeny can be tracked. She further directed that public awareness be raised effectively in this regard. The CS has also given instructions to raise funds through CSR for the construction of Gaushalas for destitute cows in the state.
In the meeting, the Uttarakhand Animal Welfare Board informed the CS that, at present, there are a total of 60 registered Gaushalas in the state. The number of cows and progeny sheltered in the registered Gaushalas is about 14,000. At present, the number of destitute animals is 20,687 the Board officials claimed.
It was reported that the district Pauri Garhwal has the highest number of destitute animals at 5,525. There are 4,955 destitute animals in Udham Singh Nagar, 2,050 in Dehradun, 2,155 in Nainital and 2,259 in Tehri. Land has been identified at 54 places in all the districts of the state and work is being done to establish cow shelters. To get this work done expeditiously, an amount of Rs 10 crores has been proposed. The best work has been done in Tehri district for the construction of cow shelters, it was claimed.
Secretary BVRC Purushottam, Additional Secretaries C Ravi Shankar, Nitin Singh Bhadauria along with officials of Animal Husbandry and Panchayati Raj Department were among those present at the meeting.
