Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that his government was committed for the protection of cows and directed the Animal Husbandry department to take care of stray cattle and construct cowsheds for them across the state.
Reviewing the work of Animal Husbandry department, the Chief Minister asked the officials to supervise maintenance of state-run cowsheds and regularly send reports to the government.
“All these cowsheds should be geo-tagged so that their exact location could be known,” he said.
“Our government is constructing cow shelters for the protection of stray cattle. If any farmer is keeping stray cattle at his home and taking care of it, the state government is helping such farmers by giving them Rs 900 for each animal,” the Chief Minister added.
The government has already sanctioned Rs 1.20 crore for day-to-day expenses of gaushalas (cowsheds) but no one knows whether this money is properly used.
Cow has been a big political issue for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Incidents of lynching of people allegedly smuggling cows have been reported. Muslims in Uttar Pradesh have stopped rearing cow and the cattle fairs where farmers used to sell their animals are no longer being held in the state.
It is no secret that the members of the so-called cow vigilante groups enjoy political patronage. The result is that the number of stray cattle has gone up in villages. Tension builds up in village when these stray cattle destroy crops. At several places, the villagers have been forced to lock the stray cattle in schools or hospital compounds to save their crop.
The Chief Minister said that farmers should be apprised of the benefits of bio-fuel. This, he said, would double the income of farmers and increase the acceptability of cowsheds.
The Chief Minister also asked officials to ensure ban on one-time use plastics.