Rajasthan ministry is planning to go digital soon. Well… this time it is for buying and selling of cattle. As the government of Rajasthan got inspired by already existing portals like Quicker and OLX so it is planning to implement the same for the benefit of Rajasthan. This step will enhance the cattle trade of the state as Rajasthan is the only state with a Cow Welfare Ministry.
This initiative of launching e-portal for cattle will proved to be great step taken by Rajasthan. The website will come live within upcoming six months. On this portal, all the information like price of cows, yield, photos of animals as well as contact details of the buyers and sellers.
Rajasthan cow welfare minister Otaram Devarsi, “Our efforts are to increase farmers’ income and ensure no cow is abandoned. The farmers will receive the right price of cattle and role of middlemen will be curbed.”
The state has asked farmers to form an association to run the website with the support of the government. The association will focus on breeds of cows like Gir, Tharparkar, Saiwal, Kankrej and Haryanvi.
Additional director of the cow welfare ministry Lal Singh said that the association will also procure quality semen apart from making contact with other states’ associations for better yield and technology methods, said the additional director. It can also arrange expert workshops or training camps for farmers, he added.
As per the government figures, Rajasthan has 2,327 shelters with 660,000 cattle in year 2016. Talking about the livestock census of 2012, it came out 13.3 million out of which 11.5 are indigenous.
Reason behind this launching
The motivation behind this digital trading of cows is decreasing number of cows in the state. In 2016, , the Rajasthan government said 8,122 cows died at Asia’s “best” Hingonia Gaushala between January 1 and July 31 due to ill-health and accidental injuries. There were other cases like cattle owners were beaten or worse lynched by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes. This made many people to start buying and selling cattle online on OLX. In fact, the trading of cattle was being held at good prices on OLX.
Steps taken by Government for safety of animals
As per the Centre’s new “no slaughter” rules of May 23, it demands written certification from both a seller and a buyer that the sale of cattle is not for slaughter.
For the safety of cattle, Rajasthan government’s cow ministry in the month of August 2017, reportedly tagged as many as 5,00,000 animals with unique identification numbers.
