Noida: The residents of Noida have started an initiative titled “selfie with stray cow”, to draw the attention of Noida authority officials towards the problem of stray cattle on city streets.

Under this initiative, citizens of Noida and Greater Noida are being encouraged to click a selfie with any stray bovine spotted by them on roads, and post the picture along with location details on microblogging website Twitter, with the hashtag #selfiewithstraycow, and tag the official handles of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the district magistrate and the Noida authority.

Amit Gupta, a Noida-based citizen activist, who started the initiative, said its purpose is to “awaken” the system from its “slumber”.

“I have been writing complaints to the authority since the past one year and although some positive changes have been introduced, such as setting up of cow shelters and three new vehicles for transporting cattle, much more needs to be done. For that purpose, we have started this initiative on Twitter in order to wake up the system from its slumber. The residents have to post location details as well with the picture so that officials can send staff to rescue the cattle,” Gupta said.

The initiative comes in the wake of a recent directive by CM Yogi Adityanath in December, 2018 asking officials across the state to put all stray bovines in state-aided and private shelters. On March 8, HT had reported the death of over 200 bovines at a cow shelter in Ecotech 3 area of Greater Noida, allegedly due to malnutrition and diseases as the shelter had run out of funds.

Abhay Pandey, a resident of Sector 121, said the selfie initiative serves two purposes –animal care as well as maintaining cleanliness.

“Stray animals venturing on roads are at a risk for accidents by four wheelers. Also, stray cattle are usually found near dumping grounds or dustbins, where they seek food. Such an initiative will ensure that not only the bovines are taken care of, the dumping ground and dustbin area will also not be littered,” Pandey said.

Taking cognisance of the initiative, SC Mishra, deputy general manager, health department, Noida authority said, “We have taken cognisance of the resident’s initiative and full efforts are in place to ensure that Noida is free of stray cattle. From March 5 to March 16, we rescued a total of 611 bovines from different areas of Noida and the process is still going on.”

First Published: Mar 17, 2019 11:16 IST