3 years on, students restart programme to feed cows

Tribune News Service

Deepankar Sharda

Chandigarh, March 18

Stopped during the Covid pandemic, a group of Panjab University students has resumed the “Ann anand for animals” programme, under which green vegetable leftover is collected from hostel mess and fed to cows at the Sector 25 animal shelter.

The programme, which was started by former students, Nitika Saini, Hiteshi Arora, Shishpal and Ishita Choudhary, is being taken forward by second semester students, including Abhishek, Kritika, Snow Saadgi and Prabhjot Singh, from the Centre for Social Work Department, Panjab University.

“The initiative was started in November, 2018, and it was well appreciated by the then UT Administrator, VP Singh Badnore. However, during the Covid pandemic, this exercise was stopped. Now, it has been restarted by the new batch of students,” said Gaurav Gaur, Chairperson, Centre for Social Work. On regular basis, these students visit nearly 10 hostels to collect the wet vegetable waste.

“We collect around a quintal of wet waste from hostels. We have kept separate utensils or tumblers at hostels in which the mess workers keep the wet waste. Thereafter, it is loaded on to e-rickshaws and taken to the Sector 25 Cow Shelter Home. On Monday, we collected around 150 kg of wet waste. We maintain records through the slips issued by the shelter care takers,” said Prabhjot.

“It serves various purposes and is helpful in avoiding stink rising from dustbins,” said Snow.