India’s first ‘animal hostel’ will be dedicated by Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi on Friday at north Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district’s Akodara village. Akodara is located at few distance away from district headquarter Himmatnagar. The hostel has been built in partnership with the people of Akodara village. It has been built taking scientific approach into consideration.

‘Animal hostel’ is unique concept of Gujarat government. Once the hostel is launched, all 900 cattle of Akodara village will be kept only there(none of the villagers will keep cattle at home). All cattle will be managed under cooperative approach by villagers together. A gobar bank has also been set up to generate electricity from dung. Power produced by Gobar bank will satisfy inside needs of ‘animal hostel’.

About the hostel

36 shed, water availability through 1.00 lakh liter water tank, sump of 80,000 liter water, 3×85 square meter bio gas plant, 50 hector gauchar development land, per year 3,000 metric tone fodder production and 1,000 metric tone vermi compost fertilizer production capacity.

This animal hostel is functional on trial basis for some time, and the results so far are encouraging.

Akodara milk federation has noticed 66,000 liter increase in milk production.

Income from milk was Rs. 87.84 lakh in year 2009/10, but in 2010/11 it went up to Rs. 1.16 crore.

Akodara milk federation’s Secretary Shri Jayantibhai Raychandbhai Patel said, “thanks to animal hostel, my cattle have produced 11794 more liter of milk in this year which has resulted into Rs. 2.78 lakh plus increase in my income.

Akodara’s another beneficiary Shri Maheshbhai Patel’s three cows have together noticed per month average 350 liter increase in milk production. Thus Maheshbhai’s monthly income has reached Rs. 8000, up from Rs. 2000 earlier.

According to Jagruti Patel of Sabar dairy, if milking procedure can be completed in 5-7 minutes, it results into more milk production and more fate. In animal hostel, scientific approach has been put in practice.

Among many benefits of animal hostel, one is gobar(dung) bank. Dung and urine of cattle will be converted into bio gas through scientific method. This would prevent release of 3.2 tone methane in environment. As per an estimate daily 225 unit power will be produced which will be useful to operate fans, tube light, and bore well.

Akodara’s 205 families out of total 215 are associated with animal husbandry. Women of this village are happy with the set up of animal hostel, because it saves daily four hours of their work. Animals are identified in animal hostel through bio metric procedure. Entire history of particular animal can be tracked through bar code.

(inputs from field visit of Abhay Rawal)