RAJ GOVT TO TAKE COW BAZAAR ONLINE

Rajasthan is planning to set up a web portal to help people buy and sell cows online, encouraged by the success of e-commerce sites such as OLX and Quikr.com.

The proposed website will host photos, yield and expected price of cows and contact details of owners that buyers could use to get directly in touch with sellers.

“Our efforts are to increase farmers income and that no cow is abandoned. The farmers will receive right price of cattle and role of middlemen will be curbed,” said Rajasthan cow welfare minister Otaram Devarsi. The portal is expected to come up in the next six months, said additional director of the cow welfare ministry Lal Singh.

The government hopes the online portal will boost cattle trade in a state with a dedicated ministry for the welfare of cows. The state has asked dairy farmers to form an association that will run the website with help from government officials.

The portal will focus on the two most popular breeds of indigenous cows – Gir and Tharparkar – at first and later expand to three others -- Saiwal, Kankrej and Haryanvi.

Rajasthan has 2,327 shelters with 660,000 cattle, said government figures last year. The livestock census of Rajasthan (2012) put the state’s bovine population at 13.3 million, of which 11.5 million are indigenous.

In recent years, the BJP-ruled state has ramped up efforts to protect the cow, an animal considered holy by many Hindus that has also sparked communal tensions and attacks by selfstyled vigilantes.

Last month, the cow welfare ministry tagged 550,000 animals with unique identification numbers to ensure their protection and fix accountability on shelters.

Cattle trade is usually unregulated with farmers relying on local middlemen to sell or buy animals at local cattle fairs. The government hopes that the web portal will centralise the process and eliminate commissions charged by local traders.

Lal Singh said the new dairy farmer association is expected to become the one-point response for consultations on new bovine schemes.

He said the association can also work on procuring qualitative semen, interact with other states associations for better yield and technology methods, can hold expert workshops or training camps for farmers. In addition, it would also work on creating awareness among farmers over government schemes to avail its benefit.