New Delhi: The Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (national cow commission), set up for the “conservation, protection and development of cows and their progeny” earlier this year, has proposed that the Centre and states allot 10-15 specifically earmarked areas for ‘cow hostels’ in every city or urban area.
This would not just facilitate access to milk for city dwellers and also generate revenue from it, Times of India has reported.
“I have already written to the urban development ministry requesting it to make a guideline for ‘cow hostels’, which can be incorporated in urban planning framework across the country,” Aayog chairman and former BJP MP from Gujarat Vallabhbhai Kathiria told TOI.
This is in addition to the commission’s recent suggestion for setting up cow shelters in the peripheries of urban areas or nearby villages to tackle the menace of stray cattle.
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Kathiria says that the lack of space prevents people from raising cows in urban spaces and the cow hostels will allow 20-25 people to come together, pay maintenance and use the milk of their own cattle. He also claims that such cow hostels have already been successfully experimented with in some areas of rural Gujarat, though no further details have been provided.
“It can easily be replicated in urban areas across the country. Such hostels can be set up on land which can be given by municipal corporations on rent or lease to private players. Interested people can keep cows of their choice. They can even sell milk if the quantity is beyond their consumption. Cow dung and urine can also be used for making organic manure and running gobar gas plants to generate money for maintaining such hostels,” Kathiria told TOI.
Kathiria had also recently told the Print that “merely “shraddha“ (reverence) and “aastha” (faith) for cows is not enough for farmers to keep them and that they should be made aware about their economic benefits also to address the problem of stray cattle and overcrowded gaushalas (cow sheds)”.