Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to hire a private agency to catch and relocate stray cattle as its existing manpower and resources struggle to manage animals blocking roads and feeding at dumping points across the city.
The civic body currently houses around 2,000 stray cattle in six BMC-managed sheds. Kailash Chandra Dash, BMC additional commissioner, said the corporation now uses two cattle-catching vehicles, but the arrangement is insufficient for the scale of the problem.
“Currently, we are using our own resources with two cattle-catching vehicles, but it is insufficient. We will intensify the drive,” Dash said, according to officials cited by the Times of India.
Under the proposed arrangement, the private agency will assist BMC teams in catching cattle and moving them to any of the six existing shelters, depending on available space and operational convenience. The temporary arrangement is expected to continue until a larger facility at Jamukoli, on the city outskirts, becomes operational.
The proposed Jamukoli mega cattle shelter is being developed across 17 acres and is expected to accommodate around 3,000 cattle. Officials said it will be integrated with the existing bovine care facility at the location and will include a veterinary hospital, food storage infrastructure, veterinary doctors and support staff.
The move follows continuing concerns over road safety and traffic disruption. Stray cattle are often seen sitting in the middle of roads, forcing motorists to get down and drive them away. Officials said their presence has contributed to minor accidents, while cattle feeding on waste at dumping points has added another challenge for the city’s sanitation and animal-care systems.
The scale of the proposed shelter also reflects the pressure on the civic body’s current facilities. BMC’s six sheds are already housing about 2,000 cattle, while the Jamukoli facility is planned for another 3,000. Officials, however, estimate that around 30 cattle may die every day at the new shelter despite proper care and feeding, a projection that underlines the difficulty of managing a large bovine population in a centralised facility.
The proposed private-agency model is therefore intended to address the immediate operational gap rather than replace the planned shelter infrastructure. BMC’s next steps involve selecting an agency, intensifying cattle-catching operations and relocating animals to available sheds until the Jamukoli facility becomes operational.
