After receiving severe criticism, the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh has finally woken up to deal with the menace of stray cattle in the city.
In a meeting of Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) held on Thursday, it has been decided to shift stray cattle to New Delhi and Punjab. And, a Budget of Rs20 lakh has been passed for the purpose in the meeting.
According to the MCC officials, 50 cattle will be shifted to Garhshankar in Punjab and 500 will be shifted to Najafgarh, New Delhi.
While talking to The Pioneer, Mukesh Bassi, councillor and member F&CC said for the shifting process, charges of Rs2,000 per cattle have been fixed including food.
"The total expenditure for 550 cattle is above Rs11 lakh. From the total amount of budget, Rs6 lakh is fixed for the transportation. The remaining cost will be used for further planning. It is also expected that some of cattle will be shifted to Shri Maan Mandir Seva Sansthan, Barsana, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh by rail.
A day before the F & CC meeting, it was decided that a special train will shift above 600 cattle to Mathura. Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had assured safe transportation for the cattle in a goods train with 40 bogies.
The death of Harpreet Singh Sodhi, a resident of Sector 45-C on Sunday has stirred up debate against MCC's failure in dealing with stray cattle menace.
Also, in the wake of stray cattle menace causing road accidents here, a local Court had recently issued an "urgent" notice to senior officials of UT Administration, MCC and Police asking why action should not be taken against them for their failure to ensure safety of commuters from stray cattle menace.