The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday approved setting up a corpus to fund shelter homes for stray cattle in the state, PTI reported.
Chief Minister Adityanath chaired a Cabinet meeting that cleared the Uttar Pradesh Cow Conservation and Development Fund Rules, 2019, to run and manage the “govansh ashray sthals” or cow shelters at the district-level. This was the first Cabinet meeting after the results of the Lok Sabha elections were declared.
The corpus will also help in implementation of developmental schemes related to cow conservation, a government press release said. The corpus will be raised by pooling funds from various heads, including a 0.5% tax on revenue collected from the sale of liquor, 2% from mandi cess, 0.5% on the toll collected on expressways constructed by the Uttar Pradesh government, reported The Times of India. The state government will also contribute to the corpus apart from an allocation from the religious endowment department.
The amount of the corpus fund is yet to be decided. The Uttar Pradesh government had allocated Rs 447 crore for maintenance and construction of cow shelters in the state budget presented in February. On January 1, the state Cabinet approved a plan to set up temporary cattle shelter facilities in urban and rural areas for stray cows, and impose a “cow welfare cess” for the maintenance of these facilities.
The state government had faced criticism after stray cattle damaged crops after illegal slaughterhouses were shut down in the state.
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