Cattle Shelter in New Town Kolkata

Traffic accidents sometimes occur in trying to save stray cattle on the speedways of New Town. The Biswa Bangla Sarani has witnessed a handful of accidents in recent times leading to injury to cattle as also persons. We have held meetings with nearby village Pradhans and tried to create awareness of not letting loose stray cattle, but the incidents of cows and buffaloes coming onto the busy streets of New Town have not been altogether eliminated.

So, alongwith continued sensitisation of cattle owners of neighbouring areas, NKDA issued a circular 0n 7.12.2017 under section 51 (1) of the NKDA Act saying that NKDA will forcibly remove stray cattle from roads if this causes encroachment of public roads.

A new cattle shed has been just built in Action Area 1D of New Town (see pic above) and a committee has been formed with veterinary doctors and officers of NKDA and local thana to determine the modalities such as feed sourcing, care of cattle kept in the shelter till its return to the owner, the costs to be recovered and for giving training to staff to be deployed. In the first meeting of the committee held on 19th Dec, it was decided that staff will be trained at Haringhata unit of the A.R.D. Department's unit.

We expect the cattle shelter to start functioning from first quarter of 2018. We expect that New Town roads to be safer from stray cattle distractions thereafter