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August 2, 1999 |
INDIA TODAY | DAILY NEWS | ASTROLOGY | HOME |
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 Holy Cow Moo. The familiar sound of cows on the capital's crowded
streets might soon fade away -- if the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has its way.
According to a new MCD scheme, dairy owners have been asked to apply for fresh plots of
land in the suburbs. The logic? The further they are, the less likely are their herds to
wander into the city. "The genesis of the cow problem is that the dairy scheme of the
'70s failed," says mcd Commissioner V.K.Duggal. "The cattle owners who were
provided plots on the city's outskirts came back to the urban villages." Keeping the
bovines on the streets makes sense for their owners: the patches of grass dotting the
roadside are a free fodder option for a cattle population now estimated at four lakh. In
1998-99, over 17,000 cows were impounded by the MCD. By next March, they plan to round up
20,000. But with the powerful mostly Gujjar lobby controlling the business, over one-third
of the animals rounded up by the mcd mysteriously returned to the streets -- though they
were officially declared dead in their sheds. For the authorities, that's plenty to chew
on. Sayantan Chakravarty |
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