MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council has set in motion the exercise to lift away stray cattle and animals from the National Highway, state highway passing through the Commercial capital as per the recent Supreme Court directions.
A joint meeting of government agencies comprising of PWD, roads, PWD National highway, RTO and Margao Municipal officials met at the Civic body to put a system in place to impound the strays with the help of gaushallas.
As per the modalities worked out at the joint meeting chaired by Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar, each of these agencies will appoint nodal officers, who in turn will work in coordination to make free the highways from stray cattle.
The nodal officers will visit the highways and identify spots which are prone to stray cattle menace. After identification of the stretches, the nodal officers will install helpline numbers to facilitate members of the public to inform representatives of the gaushalas to impound the stray cattle.
“Every department will appoint nodal officers, who in turn will work in close coordination with officials of other departments. They will inspect the stray cattle affected highway stretches and put up helpline numbers”, informed Margao Municipal Engineer Deepak Desai.
He said the meeting has decided that concerned departments will submit the names of the nodal officers in a day or two before they take the exercise forward to the logical conclusion.
Desai informed that the MMC has already inked an agreement with a gaushalla to take care of the stray animals.
“The gaushallas have impounded around 105 stray cattle from the Margao Municipal jurisdiction till date. The latest Supreme Court directions will only help to take the ongoing exercise to the logical conclusion”, the Municipal engineer added.
