Row over memo on dogs, cattle along PM’s route

Banyan and other large trees felled along the national highway near the Margao KTC bus-stand where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend a government function on Tuesday, has upset nature lovers who have questioned the move.

It comes a couple of days after a Salcete Block Development Officer (BDO) issued a memo directing panchayats of all villages through which Modi’s cavalcade will pass to ensure that the area is clear.

According to the memorandum signed by Block Development Officer Nimisha Fal Dessai “all village panchayat secretaries through which the NH-17 is passing to ensure that all the roads and surrounding area along the route of the Prime Minister of India entourage from Nuvem to Betul and vice-versa is maintained free from stray dogs, stray cattle, garbage and roadside buses to avoid any untoward incident during the period 05/02/2024 and 06/02/2024”.

Reacting to the memo, noted lawyer and environmentalist Norma Alvares stated

that the overzealous official sends a message that Narendra Modi, our Prime Minister, does not like trees, cattle and dogs.

The BDO of Salcete issued the memo on February 2 and Alvares who is a member of the State Board for Animal Welfare, said, as a consequence, authorities have already felled several large banyan trees at both the KTC bus stand in Margao and the Ponda bus stand.

She also said, animal welfare organizations are getting calls from the Collector and from panchayats to remove all cattle and stray dogs “from visible view” of the Prime Minister’s entourage.

Alvares said, the number of stray dogs and stray cattle in the areas through which the PM’s entourage will pass through, will be in hundreds

raising doubts whether they can all be caught and transported out in two days.

She said, the mad scramble to comply with the memo will only result in immense cruelty to the hapless animals.

“We firmly believe that such cruelty to animals because he is visiting Goa, simply cannot be what our Prime Minister desires. In his Mann ki Baat addresses to the nation he has often spoken eloquently about the need to be kind to the smallest of non-human creatures – the birds, the cows, the dogs,” Alvares said.

Obviously the Prime Minster is aware that there are stray dogs and stray cattle which share space with humans in the country’s cities, towns and villages and Alvares wondered why the State’s administration is seeking to hide it from him.