PCB to drag cattle owners to court

Cantonment executive officer J Sharma told The Indian Express that the cattle owners continued to flout rules despite imposing fines. The cantonment board has hiked fines for offending cattle owners from Rs 250 to Rs 500. Yet, these fines proved to be no major deterrent for those who do not believe in the law. Animals earmarked for slaughter pose a major problem to the cantonment board. The owners preferred to leave such cattle loose on the roads until they were taken away to the slaughter house. And the cantonment board found no takers even if they impounded these cattle. On a daily basis, the cantonment board impounds atleast five such cattle-heads everyday. Finally, the officials leave the cattle loose only to find them suddenly disappear from the roads.

Although the PCB should ideally contain around 800 cattle-head, the numbers have increased to more than 3000 over the years posing a major problem to the authorities. It may be mentioned here that the PCB had proposed to construct 25 cattle sheds at Ghorpadi village to accommodate about 500 cattle-head. But the cattle owners do not seem to be responding to the appeals of the board authorities to shift the cattle to Ghorpadi.

The officials hoped that legal action initiated against the offenders would help curb the cattle menace.