Palanpur

The Chairman of Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited popularly known as Banas Dairy, a major constituent of brand Amul in Gujarat which collects an average of around 35 lakh liters of milk everyday, Mr. Parthibhai Bhatol has claimed that the recent devastating spell of heavy monsoon rain has killed around one lakh cattle in the worst affected Banaskantha district of the state alone.

He also said that the three day spell of the incessant rain had brought down the daily collection of milk to as low as two lakh liters from the average 35 lakh.

‘Four days ago when the rain first wreaked havoc our collection was only two lakh liters, a record low. A day after it improved but was yet only five lakh liters. We expect it to touch ten lakh liters mark in a day or two. The scale of devastation in terms of cattle deaths is unimaginable. As per our initial estimates at least one lakh cattle have been killed during the rains,’ Mr. Bhatol said claiming that altogether 2000 cows and calves from a cattle-center in Tetoda village under Deesa taluka alone were washed away and killed.

‘A large number of dead cattle is that of younger calves. We collect milk from around 1300 villages of this northern district and now we are afraid that our collection will take some time to reach the normal level in the wake of the large scale deaths of the cattle which also include a big number of milk producing cows and buffaloes,’ he said.

Our co-operative is conducting a survey with regard to the cattle deaths which would be completed in a week’s time, the chairman said.

We are also providing help in rescue and rehabilitation work and compensation, if any, to those of our members who have lost their cattle would be decided by our board, he said.

‘Banas dairy was established in 1969 under the Gujarat Co-operative societies Act 1961 with the support of the national dairy development board (NDDB) as a part of their Operation Flood Program launched to bring about white revolution in the country.

It manufactures a large number of dairy products under AMUL, SAGAR and BANAS brands.which are marketed through Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, Anand. It provide a large number of technical inputs to over 1.8 lac farmer households, which are organized through 1200 odd village level cooperative Milk Societies.

Banaskantha district has witnessed the highest amount of rains in the recent over three day spell. The district, which was praying for rain with parching fields a few weeks ago is now rain surplus with over 151 percent of average annual figure so far. 14 people have also lost their lives in rain related incidents in the district where rescue operation was still on and several villages have turned in to islands owing to heavy water logging around.

Editor’s note: official govt figure of cattle death till yesterday was 3400.Highest estimated figure quoted by section of media quoting sources is 11,000 deaths.

– DeshGujarat