MARCOS GONSALVES
marcos@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Youth group called ‘Adventures Swaggers Cycling group’ from South Goa has taken an initiative to put on reflector radium belt around the neck of all the stray cattle they spot to avoid accidents and also to save the cattle. Stray cattle issue has been for discussion for a very long time, and the government and animal lovers are still struggling to zero in on a solution.
Since August 8, in order to bring down the number of mishaps on the roads, the group of nearly 10 youth initiated this move, spending nearly Rs 10,000 from their salary.
Viraj Raikar, Harish Muli, Deepak Kurade, Damodar Mardolkar, Vithal Raikar, Shubham Naik, Vithal Suresh Pawar, Rajesh Patil, Jollyton Fernandes, Deepak Chavhan, Dhananjay Hiramath, Richard, Suraj Naik, Shakar, and Nikhil naik are the members of the group and all are aged between 18 to 32 years.
This group was founded in August 2020, as they have completed one year on August 8, 2021.
"We had started this group just for the sake of cycling purposes, as the days passed we noticed one of the important issues of stray cattle," said Vitthal Raikar.
He further said that they witnessed mishaps on the road due to stray cattle, resulting in injuries and deaths of the riders and cows. "Many times the cattle stting on middle of the road and on the roadside is not noticeable due to the lack of any illumination, resulting in accidents. We have been also hearing about the people and NGOs blaming the government for failing to resolve the issue of the stray cattle but none was seen coming forward with the solution to resolve it. We planned to put the reflector belts around the necks of cattle found on the road, so that the commuters can notice them. But we had no money to purchase the required reflector belts. Later on, we decided to contribute amongst ourselves," he said.
Many of the members of this group are doing jobs in the private sector and they do cycling on an everyday basis. They feel that this is their small contribution towards