Cuttack: Even as the Orissa High Court on Thursday asked the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) to make adequate alternative arrangements before removing the cowsheds from the city, the milkmen have threatened to go ahead with their protest as chalked out earlier and stop supply of milk and milk products in the city on November 20. The milkmen are protesting against the recent CMC orders asking them to relocate their cowsheds outside city limits.

"We will paralyse the functioning of municipal office on Monday in protest against its cowshed removal drive," warned Subash Chandra Behera, Cuttack district chief of Jadhav Mahasabha, on Friday. Addressing a huge gathering of milkmen at a convention here on Thursday, Mr. Behera had said over 2,000 lathi-wielding milkmen would gherao the CMC office on Monday. The CMC gherao plan was on cards as scheduled, he added. District Milk and Milk Products Traders' Association chief Pradeep Behera said as a mark of protest, no milk or milk products would be delivered on Monday. He said the civic authorities started playing the blame game after it was reprimanded by the High Court. ``To cover up its own lacunae in controlling the mosquito menace, the CMC is trying to escape by blaming cowsheds as responsible for the increase in mosquitoes,'' he said.

`Blame game'

`` Improper desilting of drains, piling of garbage after the puja days and above all the use of poor quality of MS oil for killing mosquitoes are the main causes of the increase of the menace and not the cowsheds,'' Mr. Behera said. Frequently pulled up by the HC for failing to curb the menace, the CMC was trying to escape from its own responsibilities by blaming others, he added.

Earlier this month, when the HC was hearing a PIL, it was told that the mosquito menace was growing owing to mushrooming of cowsheds.

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