Jalandhar August 31
Seeking an immediate relief to the affected livestock owners, the Mahila Kisan Union (MKU), a constituent of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, has asked the Government of India to declare the Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) in cattle as a pandemic, which had already spread across more than seven states.
Announce relief for pig farmers too
Compensation should also be extended to piggery farmers who have been facing financial losses due to culling of animals infected with African swine fever in the state. —Rajwinder Kaur Raju, MKU president
In a letter to the Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, MKU president Rajwinder Kaur Raju demanded that the infectious disease be declared a ‘national calamity’ as LSD has affected milking cattle in large numbers in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, thereby adversely impacting production and marketing of milk to the consumers.
Women farmer leaders bemoaned that this disease had been causing thousands of deaths of milking animals which had caused financial losses to the livestock owners, but the governments had not provided any relief to depressed owners on the lines of aid or assistance being provided to the industrialists. “The way cows succumb to the disease is very painful and unimaginable,” she deplored.
Raju said: “Dead animals are being disposed of in an unscientific manner whereas infected are being unchained in the open to roam about thereby causing infection to spread.”
The MKU leader added that there was no regular monitoring of the emergent situation either by the union ministry concerned or the state government for effective prevention of the disease at the grassroots level which shows their sheer carelessness towards livestock owners and farmers.
Giving more details, the women leader said the LSD, being a contagious viral disease must be declared as pandemic immediately so that the affected states could get relief from disaster relief funds and effective treatment could be provided at earliest. She revealed that more than one lakh cattle had been affected by the LSD and about 40,000 animals had died in Punjab since the outbreak of LSD.
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