Visakhapatnam: Despite warnings from the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), departments of horticulture, roads and buildings, veterinary, city traffic police and road transport authority (RTA), stray cattle holding up traffic is still a common site in the city. This often results in traffic snarls and minor accidents.Interestingly, the civic body has deployed a dedicated enforcement team and vehicles to catch the animals roaming city roads.A member of the enforcement team revealed that each morning the team checks areas like Chinna Waltair, AU Road, RK Beach, Visalakshi Nagar and Pedda Waltair, and other neighbourhoods for stray cattle.He related that once they cited three cows in front of the AU Central Library. When they tried to catch them, they entered the library premises, and could not be trapped.According to the veterinary wing of the GVMC, the city has nearly 1,000 cows and buffaloes roaming the streets. As per the rules, the cattle owners must register their animals with the GVMC, but many of them do not do it. They impose a fine of Rs 1,000 on the cattle owner and transfer the rescued animals to the goshala in the city.A GVMC horticulture officer saidstray cattle damage plants on the central medians, thus damaging the beauty of the city roads.“We will soon conduct a meet with cattle owners to make them aware of the dos and don’ts on public roads and urge them to take precautions to keep their animals off the roads,” the horticulture officer said.“We regularly discuss this issue at our monthly road safety meeting headed by collector Pravin Kumar. The citizens and cattle owners should cooperate with the law enforcement agencies to prevent any kind of road mishaps in the city,” said city traffic ACP K Prabhakar to TOI.

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