Stray menace looms large as civic body plans go astray

Sukhmeet Bhasin

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Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 8

With no definite solution in sight to manage the rising number of stray cattle on city roads, residents are living in a fear of meeting with an accident anytime on city roads.

There have been at least 12 deaths and several persons have left with permanent scars on their faces or body for no fault of theirs since January 2015.

Recent incidents

In recent incidents, Gurdev Singh (85), a resident of Nai Basti, died of injuries after he was hit by stray cattle when he went out for a morning walk.

In another incident, Shanti Devi (70) was attacked by stray cattle at street number 7 of Namdev Road in the city, while she was crossing the road and was going to her house when the incident happened. She received injury on her chin.

Upset over the stray cattle menace in the city, Harjinder Singh, a resident of Gali Khaddar Bhandar Wali, had moved an application under Section 22-C of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, in the permanent lok adalat, which also summoned the Municipal Commissioner, but despite this, residents failed to get any relief.

Around 4,000 stray cattle in city

Though there was no data on the exact number of stray cattle in the city, it is said that there are around 4,000 canines in the city and the number is rising day by day, as village residents leave the stray cattle abandon in the city during night hours to safeguard their fields from their attack. In the previous month, residents left around 500 stray cattle in the city.

There have been fights over the issue in the neighbouring Mansa where residents come to leave the stray cattle in the District Court Complex.

There is no definite solution in sight in the absence of any adequate shelters for them.

Gaushalas lack space

Though a majority of the ‘gaushalas’ are doing a decent job, they too have limits of space leading to animals on the streets. The city Municipal Corporation lacks specialised staff for handling the caught animals in first place. There are reports of local bodies in the neighbourhood just transporting them out of their limits into boundaries of others. The menace has now become a bone of contention between residents of villages and the city as the former generally tend to abandon cattle in the city.

Dairies add to the woes

Even illegal dairies running in the city have also added to the problem as over 200 such units are running in residential areas. Thousands of heads of cattle are reared in these dairies that operate from small buildings or sheds. Owners of these dairies abandon male calves, which are not useful, leading to stray cattle menace in the city.

Cattle pond delayed

Bathinda is the first city in the state to start levying cow cess. Residents had argued that despite paying cow cess, they have failed to get respite from the stray cattle menace. The corporation collected Rs 18 lakh in cow cess in the past one year, but delay in constructing a cattle pond has aggravated the problem.