Economic sustainability of Gaushalas in Southern Karnataka

Abstract

Gaushalas are considered to be the best alternative to manage the increasing stray cattle population. Since Gaushalas have to take care of mostly unproductive animals and supported largely by charity, they need to be economically self-sustainable. In this paper an attempt has been to study the economic sustainability of Gaushalas in southern Karnataka state. A sample of 18 Gaushalas drawn from 13 districts of Southern Karnataka was considered for the study. Both the primary and secondary data were collected for the period 2015 to 2019 and analysed. The primary source of income for Gaushalas was donations (64%) followed by government grants (23%) and sales (11%). The major expenditure was towards feed and fodder (68%) followed by labour expenses (18%). The operating ratio for all the Gaushalas was found to be 0.69 indicating that 69% of gross income was used to cover the working expenses. But on long term basis some Gaushalas were not able to cover their total expenses as they had negative net income. Economic Sustainability Index (ESI) was computed using net income per animal, returns over variable cost, self-sufficiency, dependency and percentage of productive animals. About 39% of Gaushalas were less sustainable (ESI< 0.33), 55% moderately sustainable (0.33 <ESI < 0.66) and only 6% were under high sustainable category (ESI > 0.66). It was observed that Gaushalas were largely dependent on public donations and Government grants which makes them less sustainable. So, there is a need to diversify income sources such as income from sale of milk, milk products and other by-products besides exploring efficient marketing channels.