Cow sanctuary at Sunni to open this month

Construction work at cow sanctuary at Sunni in Shimla District has been completedwith initial cost of around 2.22 Crore( Two Crore Twenty two lakhs only) for providing safe and secure place for bovine  with basic minimum facilities for shelter, drinking water, dry or green fodder for their feeding and essential veterinary services including identification of animals with ear tagging etc said Virender Kanwar Animal  Husbandry Minister 
The cow  sanctuary will be formally opened   to the bovine community  during this  month i.e  Jan 2022The    safe sanctuary, for stray cattle   has been developed by the H.P. Gauseva Aayog in 35 bighas land   nearly 45  kms from the state capital Shimla   for the protection of bovines .

Himachal Pradesh will set up    cow sanctuaries/Gau Sadan  in  11 districts of the state  except Lahaul SpitiDistrict  to provide shelter to stray cattle in natural environment and also provide  facilities for grazing as per the availability of land resources
This will be six cow sanctuary in  the state .  Presently cow sanctuaries are functioning at Kotla Barog ( Sirmour) ,Thana kalan khas (Una), Handa Kundi (Solan), Khairi (Hamirpur ) and Luthan in Kangra District said Mr Kanwar said.  
Total five numbers of cow shed @ Rs 26 lakh with steel structureand prepainted sheet roofing has been  constructed with around 1.30 crore rupees to admit additional 500 cows in  the  expanded cow sanctuary .However, the sanctuary has around 200 cows presently.
The department of Animal Husbandry, Himachal Pradesh is already running a Gausadan at Sunni through an NGO Hari Gausadan housing 200 animals and its capacity has been  expanded  to provide shelter to another 500 stray animals by construction of additional sheds / infrastructural facilities   to serve  the abandoned and stray animals said Virender Kanwar Animal  Husbandry Minister 
The  sanctuary,  will  be developed into breeding centre of good local indigenous breeds like Pahadi( Gauri),Gir, Red Sindhi, Sahiwal, Thar Parkar, etc so as to  develop good breed bulls, meant for service of the area 
A  Fodder Store with steel structure & Prepainted Sheet Roofing has been set up with initial cost of Rs 38.87 lakhs to provide Green Fodder /cow grass (fodder).to the animals 
The cows which will be kept at the sanctuary would primarily be the animals which are abandoned by their owners after they stop producing milk and become stray animals. Animals rescued from cattle smugglers will also find a place in the facility said Minister 
The sanctuary could gradually be developed as a tourist destination by  turning it   best national level cow sanctuary. 
Facilities in the sanctuary will include hospitals and Sewan grass as fodder for the animals. This particular type of grass is considered to be among the best quality fodder for cows,”
The objective is to dedicate the entire area for cows, much on the lines of a wildlife sanctuary which will help in the conservation of these animals,
 Cow sanctuary  will  have a bio-gas plant of a suitable size to take care of its energy requirements for fuel, light and water pumping. Agencies like K.V.I.C., DRDAS and Non-Conventional Energy Development agencies will  assist these Gausadans in establishing Bio-gas plants.
To augment its resources, the  sanctuary will  prepare bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides, which can be sold to local farmers at very concessional rates. Thus, there would not be any problem of marketing for the products of Gausadans.
The H.P. Gauseva Aayog will provide funds for running of the Gausadan to the extent approved under “Providing Assistance for Running of Gausadan” like Rs. 500/- per Cattle per Month Scheme operational at present. Additional running costs will be managed by the concerned NGO, from its own resources as being done by them now, he added