Cattle on UP’s roads to be fitted with reflectors to avoid late-night collisions

The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to take the problem of crashes caused by stray cattle by the horns, and, when this isn’t literally possible, by the neck, using coloured fluorescent strips to warn motorists of their presence.

There were roughly 1.18 million stray cattle in the state five years ago, bulls too old to be useful as sires, oxen too old to work, and cows and buffaloes past their productive age, and the current number is very likely higher. Cattle slaughter is not allowed in the state.

That has meant a surge in the population of stray cattle, and when they roam the roads, they cause accidents.

The state’s animal husbandry department has tasked a private firm with pasting strips on around 10,000 cattle in smaller cities and between 15,000 and 20,000 in larger cities.

Some local officials have already started tagging cattle in their jurisdictions with these tapes, pasting a strip towards the tip of each horn. Animals without horns will wear the strips around their necks, said an animal husbandry department official who asked not to be named, citing a presentation made by a private firm.

Read more: Uttar Pradesh govt approves Master Plan 2041 for Yamuna Expressway areas

Officials in the department said the plan will first be implemented as a pilot project in cities such as Lucknow, Noida and Ghaziabad and will be extended to small towns and rural areas, where the stray menace is even more pressing, should the test-run be successful.

A budget will be outlined for the project, for which experts have been roped in, said PN Singh, the director of Uttar Pradesh’s animal husbandry department.

“We are currently in discussions with experts about tagging stray animals with white, red, and yellow fluorescent reflective tapes to enhance their visibility at night,” said Singh.

The move comes after the state’s principal transport secretary, Chandrabhushan Singh wrote to the additional chief animal husbandry secretary, proposing the idea “to help prevent accidents”.

Another animal husbandry department official, who too asked not to be named, said, “The urgency of the initiative stems from increasing concerns about accidents involving vehicles and animals, particularly on highways.”

“A private company recently made a presentation to demonstrate how fluorescent reflective tapes could be attached around animals’ necks. Tapes of three different sizes were showcased to ensure they could fit animals of various sizes,”

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has battled with a swelling stray cattle population for years now.

The 2019 Livestock Census said Uttar Pradesh was home to 1.18 million stray cattle and the number is likely to have increased since then.

This, combined with the state’s growing network of roads and the galloping vehicular population, have compounded the number of accidents, especially on highways at night.

According to a UP transport department report, 22,595 people were killed in road accidents in 2022. The number of these caused by stray cattle isn’t known.

“We are also working on identifying key areas to launch the initiative, focusing on places like city outskirts, highways, expressways, and main roads, where stray animal movement is most prevalent,” Singh said.