Stray cattle menace irks Uttar Pradesh ryots, to launch stir

The issue of stray cattle has become the biggest worry for farmers in Uttar Pradesh as the animals often end up in fields grazing on crops that are ready to be harvested, causing huge losses.

Hyderabad: Anger is brewing among the farming community in Uttar Pradesh against the BJP government at the Centre and Yogi Adityanath-led State government over its failure to fulfil the promise of solving the stray cattle menace in the State. Farmers have served an ultimatum to the Yogi government demanding new legislation to deal with the stray cattle menace, failing which they would launch a Statewide agitation to press their demand.

Farmers’ unions, including Bharatiya Kisan union (BKU), have assured full support to the farmers and have even started seeking support from opposition parties to take on the Yogi government on the issue. The issue of stray cattle has become the biggest worry for farmers in Uttar Pradesh as the animals often end up in fields grazing on crops that are ready to be harvested, causing huge losses.

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Farmers, who once took pride in keeping cattle at home, have found them to be their biggest enemies in recent years. To check the menace, farmers have even started locking up the bovines in government schools, hospitals and panchayat bhavans across UP.

During the Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised voters in Uttar Pradesh that a new policy would be introduced soon after the election results to deal with the issue, but even after nine months, no step has been taken in that direction. In fact, during the Assembly polls, farmers in the Awadh region’s Barabanki district released hundreds of cattle at the rally site of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to highlight the issue. Farmers are angry that the Yogi government has reneged on its promises and has done nothing to resolve the issue.

According to UP government statistics, the State has 18.4 lakh stray cattle and about 8.55 lakh are housed in 6,222 cow shelters and some have been adopted as part of a State government scheme. The government is paying Rs 30 per animal per day for maintenance. Finding a solution to the stray cattle menace has been a major demand of the farmers for the last few years. Though the State government tried to put all the stray cattle at its shelters, it has become difficult for the authorities to maintain them due to a lack of funds. Farmers are of the opinion that the BJP to get their support during the Assembly elections had given false assurances and was actually not interested in solving the problem.

Since the State government has not taken any measures to check the stray cattle menace, the farmers of the State had decided to launch a State-wide protest to pressurise the Yogi government to take some concrete measures. Farmer union leaders like All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) general secretary Mukut Singh, who is supporting the UP farmers on the stray cattle issue, argue that since the local administrations have no permanent solution to curb this menace and the State-run gaushalas are unable to maintain the cattle, the government should provide farmers with a certain amount to keep cattle at home and make gaushalas on their own.

It is believed that due to the Uttar Pradesh Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 2020, which prohibits the transportation of the cow or its progeny for slaughter, there has been a steep increase in the population of cattle.