UP: Aligarh administration begins to ear tagging abandoned cattle

AGRA: To tackle the menace of stray cattle, Aligarh administration has started ear tagging abandoned bovines and those lodged in cow sheds. Till now, over 3000 animals have been ear tagged.
Talking to TOI, chief veterinary officer in Aligarh Dr KP Varshney said, “Assigning a unique 12 digit number to animals by punching it in their ear will not only help them to create a database, it will be easy to allocate them to different shelters according to the availability of space”.

He said by ear tagging the animals, the administration will be able to keep a track of their health and feeding arrangements will be made effectively. At present, the state government gives Rs 30 per day for each bovine kept at a shelter.
Aligarh had reported several cases where farmers had herded stray cattle into government schools and building to save their crops. Such animals have also brought to the shelters.
Dr Varshney said that after finishing the ongoing first phase exercise in which around 5,389 animals are being assigned ear tags, the department will start tagging stray animals. In case owners of such abandoned animals come to claim them, then they will be fined before releasing the bovine. Of 5389 bovines, around 2000 have been left for tagging barcode.
District Magistrate CB Singh said that the purpose of ear coding the bovines is to provide proper care to each of them. He added that the state government has provided Rs 1 crore for feeding bovines which are kept at shelter in rural areas. “Over 100 cowsheds with a capacity of 10,000 bovines are under construction and they will be run by Gram sabhas,” said Singh, adding that another cow shelter with a capacity of 2000 bovines is being constructed in Gabhana tehsil at a cost of Rs 1.20 crore.
In January this year, the state government had introduced a “cow welfare cess” for the maintenance of cow shelters across the state. While, 0.5% cess has been made applicable on excise items that may also include alcohol, the same amount of cess will be collected from toll plazas. The Mandi Parishads that we’re already contributing 1% cess for cow protection, will now contribute an additional 1% to the government’s treasury.
Registered cowsheds 11 - 1936 bovines
Unregistered cowsheds 11 - 621 bovines
Gram Sabha operated cowsheds 18 - 2038 bovines
Nagar Nigam operated cowshed 1 - 200 bovines
Nagar panchayat operated cowsheds 10 - 594 bovines