Rising cow deaths in Madhya Pradesh raise questions about plight of shelters

Madhya Pradesh has reported a striking number of bovine deaths during the last two months at various cow shelters across the state

BHOPAL: The deaths of 60 cows in a shelter run by a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Bhopal on Sunday has highlighted the plight of cow shelters in Madhya Pradesh. A number of bovine deaths have been reported in the last two months at cow shelters across the state.

Madhya Pradesh has 1,392 registered cow shelters with about 180,000 cows. (Representational Image: HT PHOTO)

The deaths have also triggered a war of words between the ruling BJP and the Congress party.

Madhya Pradesh has 1,392 registered cow shelters with 180,000 cows. The state government, which has a special cabinet sub-group called “Cow Cabinet” for taking care of cows, has allocated ₹60 crore in the budget and ₹30 crore in the supplementary allocation for them. This translates into ₹13 for a cow every day - ₹7 less than the government’s provision of minimum money needed to take care of cows.

According to officials, the Gau Savradhan Board started a campaign to seek donation to take care of cows by providing tax exemption, and in two years, the board received ₹2.09 lakh only. “Common people have shown no interest in taking care of cows and the state government is reeling under debt and the board is facing budget constrain,” said an animal husbandry department officer, who was not willing to be named.

Its caretaker and local BJP leader Nirmala Devi Shandilya said she didn’t receive funds for several months from the government and claimed the cold weather aggravated the situation. “We did not have money to provide them protection from cold conditions,” she said.

Ashok Bhadoria, who runs the cow shelter of Deori in Morena district, where more than 100 cows died recently, had a similar grouse. “We have not received any fund for the past four months,” he said, and added that they need ₹70,000 per day to take care of 3,500 cows in the shelter.

“We are making arrangements for food by asking people to donate but there is no money to create infrastructure to save cows from the extreme weather condition,” he added.

Animal husbandry department director RK Mahia said, “We are releasing budget from time to time as per recommendation of the district committee. We have provision for providing funds for fodder and for other arrangements, the cow shelter administration should raise their own funds.”

MP Congress Committee president Kamal Nath said, “During the Congress rule, we increased the budget for cow protection and cow conservation but now the state government has reduced the budget.”

The state government should clarify what is the budget of the cow board and how much money organisations taking care of cows are getting, he said, and blamed the government for “untimely” deaths of cows in MP in the absence of proper food and protection.

Animal husbandry minister, Prem Singh Patel, said, “We will monitor the working of every shelter in the next ‘cow cabinet’ and will take action accordingly. We are also planning to impose cow cess to collect funds for protection and conversation of cows.”