First it was one rupee cow cess on each bottle of liquor sold in the state and then a legislative route to make it mandatory on the temple trusts to shell out 15 per cent of annual earning for gausadans/gaushalas. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur rolled out an ambitious Rs 1.55 cr project to set up the state’s first cow sanctuary at Kotla-Barog, near Rajgarh in Sirmaur district.
Spread over an area of 107 bighas — a land suitable to provide natural living environment and grazing facility to 500 animals, mostly stray cows — the sanctuary will be developed and fenced to turn into a protected area. Till now, the land was with the animal husbandry department and was used for grazing by the local communities.
“If the experiment goes well, we will replicate the project in every district. Land has already been identified by the Deputy Commissioners to set up cow sanctuaries and even gausadans. The whole idea is to solve the problem of stray cattle and protect gau vansh by involving temple trusts, NGOs, panchayats and charitable organisations” the CM said.
Read more of this in a report by Ashwani Sharma published in The Indian Express....
