New Delhi: During campaigning for Rajasthan polls, the Congress paid close attention to cows – promising to increase the subsidy for gaushalas under the then BJP government. Going head to head with BJP, it had also ensured state-of-the-art facilities for cattle and pledged to solve the problem of stray cows and conserve local breeds.
A month since it took back the helm, cow welfare continue to be the focus of the Ashok Gehlot government, which appears to be looking to get a leg up on the saffron party on the issue.
When in power, BJP in the state had announced the country’s first dedicated Gopalan ministry aimed at looking after stray cows. Congress sources, however, told Indian Express that Gehlot had a set up of a Directorate of Gauseva in his 2013 state budget.
In an attempt to reclaim the issue, the Directorate of Gopalan has asked district collectors in the state – now under Congress rule – to felicitate all those who adopt stray cows on Independence Day and Republic Day.
In an interview to Indian Express, the state’s cow welfare minister Pramod Bhaya said that cow is probably the animal facing the most difficulty today. “Stray cattle in a very big issue at present and it is our moral responsibility to make necessary arrangements for them and to also promote them.”
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He raised the issue at a recent Cabinet meeting and is now working on a conference of all registered cow shelters in the state capital soon.
“After cows stop producing milk, they are abandoned,” he said, adding that this issue will be raised at the conference and suggestions of “social workers and sants” will be sought.
On government subsidies for cow shelters, the minister told the English daily that the first scheme for giving grants to gaushalas began when Gehlot was the chief minister in his last tenure. “It is also his thought that good work should be done for the welfare of cows by the current government,” Bhaya said.
The minister, however, chose to stay silent on the violence in the state in the name of cow protection. “This is an issue related to law and order and I don’t want to comment on this. But it is my belief that since that I have been entrusted the responsibility of this department, we will do good work,” he told Indian Express.
There have been allegations of land grabbing in the guise of building cow shelters. On this ,the minister said the present government is “compassionate” and if such a matter comes to notice, “we will definitely take legal action.”