NEW DELHI: With stray cattle being a significant cause of accidents on national highways, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has proposed setting up animal shelters at regular intervals of 50 kilometres along highways. The consultant or concessionaire selected for highway development will identify suitable locations to set up sheds each of which will accommodate 100 animals, NHAI said.
The facility should ideally be set up on surplus land on existing or proposed right of way.
The shelters will have adequate space to store cattle feed, medical room with veterinary supplies, para-medic staff, feeding area, water storage and proper lighting arrangements, NHAI said in a policy document.
Shelters should have basic amenities such as restrooms and accommodations for caretakers, it said. The area should be properly fenced to restrict the animals within its boundaries.
The consultant must ensure that these shelters are planned at intervals of approximately 50 kms considering the adjoining project stretches of NHAI too, duly giving appropriate weightage/ consideration to the magnitude of such stray cattle movement in the vicinity of a national highway (NH). These shelters should ideally be located near rural and urban areas where there is a significant cattle population and identified cattle movement routes or crossings along the project highway,” reads the document.
NHAI recently decided that the construction and associated services of the cattle shelters would be under the scope of work for concessionaire or consultant and their expenditure would not be part of the overall cost of the project for civil work.
The services offered by the facilities will be carried out as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative.
Past measures failed to yield results
Stray cattle have posed a major safety risk on the national highways. Several measures were implemented in the past to curb the threat, but they have all to improve safety.