Bhubaneswar: Stray cattle menace continues to dog city residents with the municipal corporation having failed to complete the construction of a large kine house planned at Jamukoli on the city outskirts.
Although the civic body has been catching the stray animals on a regular basis, in absence of a proper place to keep them, the officials are releasing the animals periodically, which renders the exercise useless.
The civic body headquarters continues to be flooded with complaints, but the officials say there is nothing they can do about it at the moment.
“The sight of stray cattle, especially the bulls, is quite scary especially when they indulge in fights. On one occasion they had damaged by motorcycle at Capital Hospital. At times, they block the roads and you cannot pass through,” said Sumeet Hati, a resident of Patia.
The civic body had an embarrassing moment when the chief minister’s convoy had to stop because of a stray bull near Capital Hospital in February.
“The bull went right in front of the chief minister car. If he is not spared, what can we expect!” said Hati.
In absence of a proactive approach by the municipal corporation, cattle are found sitting right on the middle of the roads at several places. The situation is the worst on Sachivalaya Marg, Nadankanan Road and Sum Hospital Road apart from some of the densely populated areas as Old Town and Kharvela Nagar.
“The animals are not really stray. Their owners just leave them on the roads. These people should be caught and penalised. The cattle never move even if you honk your horn continuously,” said Pritam Meher, a resident of Ganga Nagar.
The civic body now has one small kine house at Kharavela Nagar, where a maximum of 15 cattle can be accommodated at a time. Keeping the need in view, the corporation in 2016 had planned to construct a big kine house at Jamukoli and earmarked a 15-acre plot for the project. But so far the civic body has only managed to build a boundary wall at the site and encroachment issues have delayed the project.
“The site belonged to the state government, but it has fallen prey to encroachmenr. When we tried to free it and go ahead with the project, we faced still opposition,” said a civic body official.
Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, on the other hand, has assured they would complete the project in the next three months. “We don’t need much infrastructure work for a kine house. We are only unable to go ahead with the project because of the encroachment. We will take the help of the police and remove the squatters shortly soon and resume the project,” said Jena.
