Hoe kan je een koe aan een dorp geven?
Wie gaat die verzorgen?
Wie gaat die te eten geven?
Wie betaald de veearts?
Wie verdeelt de melk, wie krijgt de winst daarvan?
Wie heeft zeggenschap in het bovenstaande?
Wat is de eigen inbreng, ik neem niet aan dat die koe eenvoudigweg in een dorp gedumpt wordt, zo van, “hier is jullie koe, veel plezier ermee”.
Van overheidswege worden overigens al 10-duizenden koeien “uitgezet”
Kamlabai Gudhe with her high-eating, low yielding cow that cost Rs. 17,500 of which she paid Rs. 5,500.
(Picture by P Sainath).
At the time the ‘packages’ were announced, the scheme had been attacked as “insane” by Planning Commission members and farm activists alike. (TheHindu, July 14, 2006). It gave costly cows to poor farmers in drought-hit regions without water and fodder. Besides, the beneficiaries had to fork out quite a bit for cows they did not want. (TheHindu, November 23, 2006). Many complained that the animals had been forced on them and were eating more than “our entire families”. Kamlabai Gudhe's cow in Lonsawla village of Wardha district cost Rs.17,500. Of this, she had to pay Rs.5,500 and the government the rest. Within weeks, Kamlabai tried hard to give it away to neighbours who did not want it either. “It was too costly to feed it,” she says.
The 14,221 cows have cost already indebted farmers over Rs.7.5 crore. And that does not include the cost of maintaining them. Which could range from Rs.85 to Rs.150 a day depending on who you are and what you can afford. So maintaining these cows would cost Vidarbha's bankrupt farmers over Rs.50 crore a year. For 1.16 litres more a day, that is a lot of money. (If fully carried out, the State and Centre will together have spent Rs.165 crore on the scheme in three years.) “This must be the costliest per litre milk collection rate in the world,” says Mohan Jadhav of the VJAS.