John Wilbert & Sarthak Kanjilall
Port Blair, Dec 18: Road accidents caused due to cattle menace is on the rise in the Port Blair city but even after tall claims that Port Blair Municipal Council has failed miserable to deal with problem. While the top officers are participating in National Level forum and claiming to make Andaman a world class destination, in Andaman, tourists are finding cattle roaming freely with them on road. Is this how a world class destination look like? Can’t the Administration and PBMC make sure that no cattle are seen on road? Can’t responsibility be fixed on people who have failed to perform?
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, the Sanitary Officer of Port Blair Municipal Council today said that there are altogether 02 Cattle Pounds in the city, one each in Lambaline and Dollygunj.
“Each Cattle Pound has the capacity of 12 cattle and as our cattle Van keep a good watch on the city roads, both the cattle pound remain full most of the time,” Sanitary Officer said.
However, it is learnt by Andaman Sheekha that despite growing problem of cattle menace the PBMC has reduced number of cattle pounds in city. Earlier there were four cattle pounds but now there are only two cattle pounds, because of which more number of cattle can be seen roaming freely everyday in almost all corners of Port Blair city.
When asked especially about goats, the Sanitary Officer of PBMC also clarified that the PBMC cannot pick goats that are creating menace in the road as they are very similar to each other and if caught there will be enough people standing in the queue in the evening claiming themselves as the owner of the goat. He said that once tagging of stray animal starts in Andaman, after approval of Animal By-laws this problem will be resolved.
The PBMC has already submitted an Animal by-laws proposal to the administration 06 months back but till now the Animal By-laws hasn’t got clearance.
One of the main problems is that the releasing charges of big medium and small sized cattle is too low and hence, the cattle owner take it very casually following which the problem of Cattle Menace will certainly stay for long, public believe.
The Sanitary Officer further claimed that time to time the Secretary PBMC also issued press releases to aware public for not allowing their cattle on roads but sadly when there is hardly any action from the side of PBMC, people are taking things too lightly.
The main question is that when common man can see cattle roaming freely on city roads, everyday and everywhere, why the massive PBMC and its workers can’t see the same. Even if cattle are caught do we have sufficient cattle pound to keep the cattle?
