HYDERABAD/KARIMNAGAR: The new rules close the options for a farmer with less productive cattle. Since keeping such cattle is not feasible, the farmer would have to lodge his animals in a gaushala. There are some 250 gaushalas in Telangana for instance but most of them are maintained by religious or animal rights groups. Forty-two of these are in Hyderabad.
None of them gets state support.
Further, they predominantly care for cows and oxen although the new rules cover buffaloes and camels as well.
Would gaushalas be able to accommodate cattle if small farmers are unable to keep them or sell them? The Bhagyanagar gaushala is housed in a six-floor building near the Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad. Kamal Narayan Agarwal, the president of the Gauseva Sadhan, which manages the gaushala, says the group’s three shelters have 2000 cows and would be able to care for 3500 more.
But he’s all for the new rules and thinks nothing of the prospect of abandoned cattle. “If more cows are abandoned, more gaushalas will come up, won’t they? Agarwal says.
But then, if more gaushalas have to be built in a villages and towns, the government would have to provide land for the purpose, he adds thoughfully.
Many of the gaushalas are managed by religion-affiliated groups. It’s a work of love for most of them. But is it a love that can lodge many inmates? The cost can be quite prohibitive on a wider scale.
At the Sri Raja Rajeshwara Swamy temple in Vemulawada in Telangana, authorities spend Rs 56 lakh each year to care for just 120 oxen and 20 cows lodged in its two cattle centres. The temple spends Rs 40 lakh a year on cattle feed alone. Each animal eats 2 kg of feed and 20 kg of hay or grass.
However, these are not necessarily unproductive animals. The oxen are used for some rituals and milk from the cows is used in the temple. The Kodimokkulu, an ox-tying ritual, is an age-old tradition that generates revenue for the temple -- 50 per cent of its total revenue in fact.
On the suggestion of the Telangana Goshala Federation, an average of 1000 oxen are distributed to farmers every year.