Farmhouse of Kolar legislator under scanner

‘Rakshit Farmhouse’ belonging to Kolar legislator Varthur Prakash is said to have been hit by deadly Brucellosis disease that infects cattle and its produce too. About 49 cows are said to have been infected with Brucella virus. The farm house usually supplies more than 3,000 liters of milk to Kolar – Chikballapur KMF division. In view of the development, milk supply from the farmhouse has been stopped tentatively

In view of the allegation that livestock belonging to Varthur Prakash has been affected with deadly disease ‘Brucellosis’, the blood samples of those cows were collected by district animal husbandry officials and sent to Veterinary Sciences Central Laboratory for examination.

In the eventuality of being they tested positive, Karnataka Animal Husbandry Minister, A Manju has instructed the department officials on Sunday to accord those infected cattle with euthanasia (mercy killing).

At present, 998 cows are in the said farmhouse. A few months ago, about 49 cows were said to have been affected with the Brucellosis virus and the farmhouse manager and vet experts of the farmhouse had shifted the affected cows to a safer place, to ensure that it does not spread to the other lot as well.

On learning this, RPI (Republic Party of India) leaders had alleged that the farmhouse people are disposing off of affected cows to innocent farmers and gullible people for low prices and there are strong possibilities of other cows in the farmhouse being affected with the deadly disease.

By using milk of those affected cows, chances of spreading disease cannot be ruled out and hence, public and milk co-operative societies should not buy milk and other produce of Rakshit Farmhouse – Dr. Madhav, Deputy Manager, Veterinary Department of Kolar-Chickballapur District Milk Federation.

They insisted that farmhouse milk and other products must be banned from public sale, in the larger interests of general public and they appealed to Karnataka Health Minister, Ramesh Kumar, as well.

As instructed by the Minister, a posse of Animal Husbandry department officials have visited the farmhouse under the leadership of Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry, Chennakeshava and collected blood samples of all the cows belonging to farmhouse.

In the eventuality of being tested positive, further action would be taken as per the instruction of the State Government, the official said.  Veterinary experts’ opinion had also been sought in this matter, the authorities said.