Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh city is presently witnessing a weird problem. The entire city administration for the last few days is busy tackling with stray cattle situation in rural areas. The situation according to the villagers is ‘alarming’.
The protesting farmers are locking up stray cattle at nearby government buildings like schools and hospitals.
The protest began when few farmers from Tamotia village in Iglas division confined around 500 stray cattle at a primary school and forced the school to remain closed for 2 days. The district administration on 24th December came into action and released the cattle, shifting them to state-sponsored cow shelters or gaushalas.
But, the trouble escalated like a wildfire when farmers from all other villages also started locking up stray cattle in nearby government buildings. After Tamotia, similar incident took place in Ahraula village of Khair division. Edalpur village in Sadabad division also saw a similar incident. While various other villages including Saipur, Rajipur and Datua Nagaria etc. followed the suit.
Farmers in Gorai village confined around 500 cattle at a primary health centre, compelling it to remain shut for a day. The police was able to rescue them late on 25th December and then shifted them to Tappal gaushala.
Cattle crisis has increased manifold over the past one and half years. Due to extra awareness from the government as well as Gau Raksha Samiti’s, shifting cattle from one place to another has become very difficult.
Brij Mohan Singh, a farmer from Saipur said, “Cows and bulls have damaged more than 200 bighas of our wheat crop in the past one month.” In Saipur village, around 200 cattle were locked up at a primary school. The farmer said, “Police in the afternoon came and told us to release them and warned us of strict action but how can we allow these cattle spoil our crop.”
Iglas SDM, Ashok Kumar Sharma said “This problem has been created by farmers themselves. Once a cow stops giving milk they leave it on the streets. Over a period, the number has really escalated.”
The district administration is holding meetings regularly with the pradhans asking for help. Iglas SDM Sharma said “This is a huge challenge. We have to rescue cows and move them to overflowing gaushalas that are almost 50 km away from villages. The villagers need to cooperate; otherwise we will be forced to take strict action”.
