Intensive Castration Scheme

What is the Intensive Castration Scheme?

The Intensive Castration Scheme is a programme of the Directorate of Animal Husbandry under the Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Co-operation Department, Government of Gujarat. Under the scheme, departmental veterinary staff castrate male calves and bulls with two stated objectives: controlling the stray animal population, and reducing accidents caused by stray male animals in rural and urban areas.

The scheme is unusual among state schemes because the benefit is a service, not a payment. Nothing is transferred to a bank account. What the livestock owner receives is a surgical procedure performed by government veterinary staff, and what the wider public receives is fewer uncontrolled bulls on the road.

In Gujarati departmental usage the procedure is called khasikaran (ખસીકરણ), and castration also appears as one of the standard services delivered through Gujarat's intensive animal improvement (ghanishtha pashu sudharana) network of veterinary sub-centres, alongside primary treatment, vaccination and artificial insemination.

Why Gujarat runs an intensive castration programme

Two problems sit behind the scheme.

The first is road safety. According to statements by state officials, roughly 60 to 70 per cent of cases in which people are injured by cattle on the roads involve bulls rather than cows, because bulls are the aggressive animals in a herd. The Gujarat High Court had previously pressed the state government to act on the stray cattle problem.

The second is breed management. Uncontrolled breeding by low-quality scrub bulls works directly against the department's artificial insemination programme, which exists to improve milk yield through planned breeding with selected semen. Castrating male calves that are not required for breeding is the standard veterinary tool for keeping a breeding programme intact.

The scale is significant. The Gujarat cabinet decided to sterilise nearly 50,000 stray bulls across the state, with the exercise covering all 8 municipal corporations, 156 municipalities and rural areas. The procedure is carried out under the guidance of veterinary college professors and Animal Husbandry Department officials, and each sterilisation team is composed of one veterinary officer, two supervisors and two cattle handlers. After castration, bulls are ear tagged for identification and moved to cow shelters, which receive support under the state's Mukhyamantri Gaumata Poshan Yojana.

Who is eligible for the Intensive Castration Scheme?

You can request the service if:

• You are a livestock owner in Gujarat with a male calf or bull.
• The animal is of an age and condition at which the veterinary officer considers castration appropriate. This is a clinical judgement made by the officer, not an administrative test.

You are not eligible or the service will not apply if:

• The animal is a female. The scheme covers male calves and bulls.
• The animal is a registered breeding bull being used in a recognised breeding programme, where castration would defeat the purpose. Gujarat runs separate schemes supporting the purchase and maintenance of breeding bulls.
• The animal is unfit for surgery on veterinary examination, in which case the officer will defer the procedure.
• You are outside Gujarat. This is a state departmental programme.

There is no income limit, no caste restriction and no land requirement, because the scheme delivers a veterinary service rather than a financial benefit.

What documents are required?

The documentation is deliberately light. For stray animals picked up under a municipal or panchayat drive, there is no owner and no paperwork at all. The local body and the veterinary team handle the animal directly.

How to apply for castration under the scheme

1. Identify your nearest government veterinary institution. A veterinary dispensary, a first-aid veterinary centre, a veterinary sub-centre or the mobile veterinary unit that visits your village.
2. Speak to the veterinary officer and request castration for the animal, giving its age, breed and ear tag number if it has one.
3. Register the request on the iKhedut portal where the scheme is open — iKhedut at ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in lists animal husbandry schemes under Schemes, then Animal Husbandry Schemes, and applications are taken in a notified window each financial year.
4. Confirm the date on which the veterinary team will visit, or on which you should bring the animal to the dispensary.
5. Prepare the animal as instructed. The officer will usually ask that the animal be kept off feed for a stated period before the procedure and be properly restrained.
6. Follow the post-operative instructions given by the veterinary officer, including any wound care and the follow-up visit.

For stray animals, the route is different: report the animal to your gram panchayat, municipality or municipal corporation, which coordinates with the Animal Husbandry Department's sterilisation teams. An individual citizen does not apply on behalf of a stray bull.

Where to get help

• Government veterinary dispensary or veterinary sub-centre in your area. The operational point for the service.
• Taluka Animal Husbandry Office for scheduling and for camps covering several villages.
• District Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry for escalation.
• Directorate of Animal Husbandry, Gujarat at doah.gujarat.gov.in for the published scheme list and departmental contacts.
• Gram panchayat, municipality or municipal corporation for stray cattle in a public place.

What this guide does not state, and why

The Directorate of Animal Husbandry publishes the Intensive Castration Scheme in its scheme list, but a per-animal assistance figure, an annual target and a fixed application window for individual livestock owners are not available on an official public source at the time of writing. Those details are therefore deliberately omitted here rather than guessed at. A livestock owner who needs the current year's terms should ask the taluka animal husbandry office directly, since scheme parameters in Gujarat's animal husbandry portfolio are re-notified each financial year and district targets vary.

How to check your application status

Because the Intensive Castration Scheme delivers a veterinary service rather than a cash transfer, there is no online status dashboard showing an application moving through stages the way a subsidy scheme would. Tracking works differently depending on how the request was made.

If you requested castration for your own animal at the veterinary dispensary:

1. There is no case number to look up online. The record of your request sits with the veterinary officer or the dispensary staff who took it.
2. Contact the same government veterinary dispensary, veterinary sub-centre or mobile veterinary unit where you made the request, and ask about the scheduled date for your animal.
3. If the request was registered through the taluka office (for example when a camp is being organised covering several villages), call or visit the Taluka Animal Husbandry Office and quote the date you registered and the animal's ear tag number, if it has one.
4. If weeks have passed with no visit scheduled, escalate to the District Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry, who oversees scheduling across the taluka offices in that district.

If you listed the request through iKhedut:

1. Log in at ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in with the mobile number and application reference used at the time of registration.
2. Under the applicant's dashboard, an animal husbandry scheme entry typically shows only whether the request was received in the notified window, not a procedure date, since the actual scheduling of the veterinary visit happens offline through the taluka office.
3. Treat the portal entry as confirmation that the request was logged, and follow up offline for the actual appointment.

If you reported a stray bull:

There is no individual tracking at all, since the person reporting is not the applicant of record. Follow up with the gram panchayat, municipality or municipal corporation you reported to, and ask whether the Animal Husbandry Department's sterilisation team has been assigned to that area. Corporation-level drives (across the 8 municipal corporations and 156 municipalities covered by the wider sterilisation exercise) are usually run as area-wise camps, so the local body will know the expected camp date for your ward even if it cannot name a date for one specific animal.

Common reasons for rejection

A request under this scheme is rarely "rejected" in the way a subsidy application is rejected with a written reason. Instead, the veterinary officer either defers the procedure or the request stalls before it reaches the officer. The practical reasons are:

• The animal is judged unfit for surgery on examination. Very young calves, animals with an existing illness or injury, or animals in poor body condition may be assessed as unsafe to operate on at that time. The fix is not a paperwork correction: bring the animal back for re-examination once the veterinary officer considers it fit, typically after recovery or after it reaches a suitable age.
• The animal is a registered or working breeding bull. If departmental records show the animal is being used in a recognised breeding programme, the officer will decline to castrate it because doing so would defeat the animal's registered purpose. If you believe the animal was wrongly recorded as a breeding bull, raise this with the veterinary officer directly so the record can be corrected before the request is reconsidered.
• The request falls outside the notified application window on iKhedut. Animal husbandry schemes on iKhedut open for registration in specific windows set each financial year. A request submitted online outside that window will not go through; the workaround is to approach the veterinary dispensary directly rather than waiting for the portal to reopen, since the offline route does not depend on the iKhedut window.
• No veterinary team is currently scheduled for the area. In practice this is the most common cause of delay rather than a rejection. Rural areas and smaller municipalities are covered on a rotating camp basis, not on demand, so a request made when no camp is scheduled nearby simply waits. Escalating to the Taluka Animal Husbandry Office to ask when the next camp covering your village is planned is more effective than resubmitting the request.
• The animal cannot be reliably identified or located, for stray cases. When a stray bull is reported without a clear location or description, the sterilisation team may be unable to find it during the camp visit, and the case effectively lapses. Reporting through the gram panchayat or municipal corporation with a specific location (landmark, ward number) rather than only an animal description reduces this risk.
• Ownership is disputed for a stray or semi-stray animal. If more than one party claims an animal that is otherwise free-roaming, the veterinary team may hold off until the local body or panchayat confirms who is responsible for post-operative care, since the animal is normally moved to a cow shelter afterward. This is resolved at the panchayat or municipal level, not by the veterinary officer.