Thursday, December 24, 2020
A Goa-based gau-rakshak organization Govansh Rakhsa Abhiyaan demanded in a memorandum to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant that tourists should be prohibited from eating beef in Goa, for stopping animal slaughter and sale of meat in the coastal state every day.
In the memorandum, the organization has urged that the Goa government follow Karnataka government’s new anti-cattle slaughter law, the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill (2020) for curbing slaughter of cattle in the future.
“The picture being painted outside Goa is that Goans eat only beef and that if beef is not available, people in Goa will go hungry. That is a wrong projection. Goans only occasionally eat beef and maybe sometime during festive occasions,” said Kamlesh Bandekar, a spokesperson for the organization in Panaji.
Bandekar added that almost 200 cattle are killed to feed the demand of 25 tons of beef in Goa every day, and that most of this is consumed by visiting tourists.
“The government should immediately stop the sale of beef to tourists… Most beef in Goa is sold to tourists… That way the scale of cattle slaughter will immediately come down and the red meat will be available for local Goans, those who want to eat beef,” Bandekar said. He blamed the tourism industry for running a campaign to increase beef availability in Goa.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has assured that his government is making efforts to source live cattle from other states, excepting Karnataka, to meet the demand for meat.
Tags: goa
