Gehlot to address gathering at cow meet in Jaipur today

JAIPUR: The Congress government in the state will hold a ‘Gauraksha Sammelan’ in Jaipur on Saturday. The gathering will be addressed by chief minister Ashok Gehlot in which representatives of more than 2,600 registered gaushalas have been invited. The gathering, few months ahead of elections, is seen as a move to highlight the cow welfare schemes of the Congress government.
The ‘Gauraksha Sammelan’ will be organised around 11 am at Jaipur Exhibition and Convention Centre (JECC) situated in Sitapura. Along with Gehlot, Gaupalan minister Parmod Jain Bhaya and agriculture minister Lalchand Kataria will take part in the meeting. On Friday, officials of gaupalan department went for an inspection of the venue for the arrangements of seating, toilets, drinking water and parking facilities.
According to official sources, the meet is organised to give the administrators of the gaushala owners a common stage to discuss issues related to the cow welfare and the difficulties that the gaushalas are facing in the implementation of various schemes launched by the government for cow welfare. The gaushala representatives will be asked to give suggestions regarding the new schemes for the interest of cows.
Pawan Goyal, additional chief secretary, agriculture department said, “This conference is for listening to the problems of the gaushala functionaries. This has nothing to do with the ‘gau rakshak’ but for cow welfare. We are expecting around 4000 - 5000 people to arrive on Saturday for the event.”
At present there are four types of cow welfare schemes in the State. They are Gaushala Vikas Yojna, Nandishala Yojna, Biogas Yojna and Gau-abhyaranya Scheme. Rajasthan has 10% cow cess on stamp duty and 20% on liquor VAT for cow welfare.