Cow menace prowl in city

The menace of stray cows roaming on some of the busiest streets of Mysore has become a public nuisance. The motorists have to be extremely cautious when a cow suddenly walks onto the middle of the road scaring the unsuspecting drivers to suddenly apply brakes to avoid hitting the animal. The most annoying part is when the public try to shoo away the cow, it always invariably turns its head and dashes right into the middle of the road making the driver to lose control over his vehicle.

The menace has really reached alarming proportions in some areas of the city like the busy Nanjumalige Circle and the Akki Chowka near KR Hospital Road where vegetable markets are located. Lured by the rotten and stale vegetables thrown
on the road, these cows roam on these roads unmindful of the traffic jam they create. In the Ittigegud locality near Indiranagar, cows can be seen tied right on the footpath forcing pedestrians to walk on the footpath. In fact this has
become a noted feature of this locality.

The owners of these cows who rear them for milk deliberately leave them on the roads and come back to pick them up only in the night. But the havoc they are causing is really nightmarish.

It is indeed true we worship cows and treat them as sacred, while the yeoman service they have been rendering to us since ages by ploughing our fertile lands, before the advent of today?s mechanized farming, always makes us to touch them with reverence and bow to them. But it is a different matter altogether if they are found loafing on the streets causing nuisance to both the public and pedestrians.

Though the City Corporation in the recent past did initiate some action by taking away stray cows to its premises or housing them in Pinjrapole on the outskirts of the city, a private welfare organization setup solely to house old and diseased cows, while imposing hefty penalty on the owners when they come to collect them, the drive seems to have stopped abruptly for no reason. It is indeed surprising to find a stay cow always present on the busy Sayyaji Rao Road near KR Hospital during peak hours when the traffic flow is maximum. The traffic police simply turn their head the
other way and the motorists have to break abruptly cursing the dumb animal.

Especially now when the City Corporation is quite busy in beautifying the city, doing all efforts to retain the heritage tag to attract tourists while also clearing the city of garbage and plastic carry bags, laying inter-locked tiles on footpaths, clearing encroachments on the foot-paths, it should also take up the issue of stray cow menace and curb the practice of the owners leaving their cows on the roads to graze.

The danger becomes even more serious especially in the night when the cows lie down right in the middle of the road and goes to the drivers headlight. Numerous accidents have occurred in the past where either the driver or the pillion rider have lost of their lives.

Speaking to Express Roopa a daily commuter near Nanjumalige Circle said that `the cow owners should take care of their cows. If they left to road this way, they will be also hurt if any vehicles hit them. Meantime it also takes extra time to cross this single stretch as more than one kilo meter here the cows reside on the roads.'

The Corporation officials say of making the city clean first they should provide basic facilities for human being by making free from cow, pig and dog menace which are in rise, Shoiab a shop-keeper in the market opined.