Chandigarh, Dec 12:
The Cabinet Sub-Committee, comprising of four senior Ministers of the Punjab Government, on Thursday called for collaborative action of all the departments of the state government to grapple with the serious socio-economic threat posed by stray cattle in the state. The Cabinet Sub Committee, comprising of Local Bodies Minister Brahm Mohindra, Animal Husbandry Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu and Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla, held its first meeting here today under the chairmanship of Mr Brahm Mohindra.
Stating this here, an official spokesperson for the Local Bodies department said that Mr Brahm Mohindra instructed the Secretary of the Animal Husbandry department to study the best practices adopted by other states of the country to tackle the stray cattle menace and put up workable solution for the consideration of the Cabinet Sub Committee. The Committee also decided to make the officers of Local Bodies and Animal Husbandry department accountable in the eventuality of any untoward incident pertaining to the stray cattle was reported from any area of the state. It was decided that the concerned officer/official in whose area of jurisdiction it happened would be personally held responsible for it and departmental action would be initiated against him.
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, Animal Husbandry Secretary Raj Kamal Chaudhary apprised the committee that at present every district of the state had one government run Gau Shala which was run under the supervision of District Animal Welfare Society (DAWS). He said that Deputy Commissioner was the head of these DAWS. He said that presently there were about 11000 stray cattle housed in these government run Gau Shalas. Apart from it there were 418 private Gau Shalas in the state under the management of NGOs and other social and religious organizations. He said that these private Gau Shalas housed approximately one lakh stray cattle.
The Spokesperson also said that 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.
