Harried by stray cattle menace? Bear with it, NMC has no manpower!

Nagpur: There is no respite in sight for motorists in the Orange City from stray cattle as the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) veterinary department has only 15 personnel with only one impounding vehicle to deal with the problem.
With the available infrastructure, NMC staffers face severe hardships in keeping city roads free from an estimated 30,000 cattle heads roaming across the city limits spread over 217.6 sq km.Five years ago, there were around 20,000 cattle heads in the city.
NMC’s veterinary officer Dr Gajendra Mahalle said that the department has two vehicles for impounding cattle. “Since we have only two drivers, we can operate only one vehicle at a time in two shifts divided between 8am and 10pm,” he said.
Sources said there are 1,181 cattle sheds in the city but only 450 were registered with the district dairy development office but no action is being taken against them.
At present, the NMC runs four cattle impounding centres with a combined capacity to impound only 70 cattle at a time. The other four centres at Kanji house at Somalwada, Jaitala, Khadan and Netaji Market were closed down due to lack of manpower.
The NMC receives around 15 complaints about stray cattle per day. But only 5-6 complaints can be addressed with the available manpower. The department also operates a hydraulic ambulance to lift injured animals. “One team requires at least three hours to impound a herd of stray cattle,” said a field staffer.
The staffer further said that the capacity of existing centres must be increased. “When there is no more place to keep the impounded cattle at these four centres, we have no option but to stop the drive,” said the staffer.
“The impounded cattle are released after the owners pay the fine. But they let the cattle again on the streets,” the staffer added.
According to sources, the NMC should provide one impounding vehicle to each of the 10 zones to counter the menace. Also, shifting of cattle sheds outside the city limits will solve the problem to a great extent. The then municipal commissioner Shyam Wardhane had proposed to shift all cattle sheds outside the city limits but some corporators had opposed it.
A high powered committee of corporators and veterinary department officials too was formed to study the feasibility of the project. Wardhane had sent a team of veterinary officials to Nandgram in Gujarat where similar project of shifting cattle sheds outside municipal corporation limits was implemented. “The project had also solved the stray cattle problem in Nandgram,” claimed an NMC official, who was part of the team that visited the Gujarat city.