A Cabinet Sub-Committee, comprising of Punjab Government’s four senior Ministers to look into the stray cattle menace, on Thursday called for a collaborative action of all the state government departments to grapple with the serious socio-economic threat posed by stray cattle across the State.
The Cabinet Sub Committee, comprising of Local Bodies Minister Brahm Mohindra, Animal Husbandry Minster Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, and Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla, held its first meeting on Thursday.
The sub-committee, headed by Mohindra, instructed the Animal Husbandry Department’s Secretary to study the best practices adopted by other states in the country to tackle the stray cattle menace and put up workable solution for the consideration of the Cabinet Sub-Committee.
The panel also decided to make the officers of Local Bodies and Animal Husbandry Departments accountable in the eventuality of any untoward incident pertaining to the stray cattle was reported from any area of the State.
“The concerned officer or official, in whose area of jurisdiction it happened, would be personally held responsible for it and departmental action would be initiated against him,” it was decided in the meeting.
Likewise, the Cabinet Sub Committee expressed hope that as Head of the District Administration as well as Animal Welfare Society, the Deputy Commissioners were better informed about the ground realities and were in a position to evolve localize workable strategy to deal with the stray cattle menace.
At the onset of the meeting, the State Animal Husbandry Secretary Raj Kamal Chaudhary apprised the sub-committee that at present, every district of the State had one Government run gaushala which was run under the supervision of District Animal Welfare Society (DAWS), and headed by the Deputy Commissioner.
Spokesperson said that presently, there were about 11,000 stray cattle housed in these government run gaushalas. Apart from that, there were 418 private gaushalas in the State under the management of NGOs and other social and religious organizations. These private gaushalas housed approximately one lakh stray cattle.
It was the first meeting of the Cabinet Sub Committee and the committee would regularly meet after in future also to review and suggest ways and means to tackle the problem of stray cattle in a holistic manner to save the precious human lives, said the spokesperson.