No problem selling diseased buffaloes to public: Lanong

SHILLONG - Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Bindo M. Lanong Wednesday made yet another remark that could well spell trouble for himself and the government. He told the state assembly that there was no problem with incurable, diseased buffaloes being sold from government farms to the public.

Bindo M. Lanong, who heads the animal husbandary ministry, Wednesday said there could be no problem of government farms selling incurable, diseased buffaloes if people were willing to buy them.

“Perhaps the people willing to buy old buffaloes with incurable diseases have a way to cure them with herbal medicines… what can we (government) do about it?” Lanong told legislators during question hour.

Lanong, a senior member of United Democratic Party, a constituent of the Congress-led Meghalaya United Alliance coalition government, last courted countroversy when he called a group of women ‘venomous vipers’, evoking protest from various women groups.

Stunned with Lanong’s reply, the opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislators asked if there was any law that prohibited sell of diseased livestock that could pose serious health problems.

Timothy D. Shira of the NCP asked whether it wasn’t the government’s responsibility to safeguard the public’s health and if selling diseased buffaloes to the public posed serious health problems.

However, a defiant Lanong reiterated: “Once an animal is sold from the government-run farms, it becomes the responsibility of the buyer and not the government to ensure if the animal is consumed or used for any other purposes.”

Lanong made the controversial statement on buffaloes after Nihim D. Shira of the NCP inquired about the number of buffaloes at the government-run Songsak Bonegre farm and the criteria for selling them.

The maverick deputy chief minister informed the assembly that old, incurable, diseased and serious buffaloes were being sold to the public.

He added that excess male calves stock and animals not suitable for breeding was another criteria for selling of buffaloes.