With Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stressing on meeting the deadline of January 10 for setting up gaushalas, the government has decided to set up societies at the village level to look after the maintenance of these cow shelters.

A senior official said that the societies would operate at the village and tehsil levels and their members would be selected by the district administration.

Nagar nigams, nagar panchayat and gram sabhas will just be the controlling authorities.

“Special grazing grounds will be developed for the animals where the stray cattle will be kept. The anti-land grabbing cell is working efficiently and has allotted over 43,000 hectares of land to set up these gaushalas,” the official said.

On November 6, 2017, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had declared that the state government would open gaushalas in all the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh. That day, the Chief Minister had also declared that his government had saved cows from going to slaughterhouses and it would find ways to rear and protect the cattle.

In the 2018-19 budget, the UP government had allocated Rs 360 crore for protection of cow and construction of gaushalas through different departments. On July 5, 2018, the first instalment Rs 81 crore was sanctioned and the number of districts having cow shelters came down from 75 to 68. The government discarded seven districts of Bundelkhand namely Jhansi, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Banda and Chitrakoot.

“Out of this Rs 81 crore, Rs 34 crore will be used for construction of cow shelters as each gaushala will have an area of 17,000 square feet,” state Animal Husbandry Minister SP Singh Baghel said.

The cow shelters are being constructed under different schemes also, the minister said.

“In Bundelkhand, we have given a special package to construct gaushalas while in Mathura, the Chief Minister has laid the foundation stone of Mahamana Gau Gram scheme. The government is working in a phased manner to overcome the problem,” Baghel said.

Under the Mahamana Gau Gram scheme, the gaushalas will accommodate over 10,000 cows.

On January 1 this year, the UP government imposed a 2 per cent cess on liquor and 0.5 per cent additional tax on toll. This money will be used to construct cow shelters in villages.