Of the 1,800 stray bovines given to farmers and people involved in animal husbandry for adoption in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district in the last two years, 600 cattle have been found to be ‘missing’.
The cattle were given for adoption under the Chief Minister’s ‘Govansh Sahbhagita Yojna’ scheme, intended to provide a solution to the problem of stray cattle.
A recent survey by the district’s animal husbandry department found that 600 cattle were missing. When queried, it was claimed that the bovines had “died”.
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Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) of the district, Awadhesh Kumar Vajpayee, said the death of the adopted cattle “is being investigated in detail”. Under the scheme, Rs 30 per day was to be provided to those who adopted an animal via direct benefit transfer.
It is suspected that the over 600 cattle claimed to have died, may have been sold by those who adopted them, said a veterinary department official. The state government recently released a one-year payment (from January 2022 to January 2023) of Rs 1.3 crore for people who had adopted 1,884 cattle under the scheme in Etah.
“Following the survey conducted by secretaries of gram panchayat and veterinary departments, it surfaced that 674 out of 1,884 cattle given for adoption were missing. The people who adopted them claimed that they died. In all these cases, payment under the scheme has been stopped,” the CVO said.
There are 27 cow shelters housing 4,139 stray cattle in the Etah district and of these, 14 are temporary centers. Farmers. meanwhile claimed that despite government initiatives like these, there is still no respite from the problem.
“So far, there has been no concrete action taken to control the stray cattle menace. These animals have been causing large-scale crop losses. Farmers have also been killed and seriously injured in cattle attacks,” said a local farmer.
The cattle adoption scheme in Uttar Pradesh was launched in 2019 after widespread protests over the menace across the state.
According to 2019 data from the Union ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry, and dairy, Uttar Pradesh has 18.4 lakh stray cattle, the highest in the country.
Out of these, around 8 lakhs are either in shelters or adopted as part of the state government scheme.
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