The Ayodhya Nagar Nigam has decided to make the cows of the city wear blazers designed for them after civic officials held a meeting with sadhus.

Neeraj Shukla, commissioner of Ayodhya’s municipal body, has said that this decision will be implemented fully in three stages.

The clothing project will start from a cowshed with 1,100 cows and 100 calves, run by the municipality and located in Baishingpur village.

“We have initially ordered 100 blazers for the calves and they will be put on them by the end of November. Each blazer costs Rs 250 to Rs 300. The cows will be provided blazers in the next two phases,” Shukla told reporters.

“We are also going to make arrangements for a bonfire in the cowsheds in the town. There will also be curtains of jute in each compartment of the cowsheds,” said Shukla.

He said the municipality had taken this decision after a meeting with local sadhus.

Bulls and oxen will also be given blazers once the calves and cows are covered, another official said.

Ayodhya mayor Rishikesh Upadhaya said: “Our focus is on offering service to the cows. Besides providing cow coats, we are also planning to ensure their comfort during the cold wave in December-January.”

A veterinary department official in Lucknow said the blazers had been specially designed for stray cattle. The blazers for cows and calves will have a soft inner layer made of cotton cloth, foam in the middle and jute-derived material in the outer layer.

For bulls and oxen, both the layers of the blazers would be made of jute cloth with foam in between.

“This scheme will be implemented in the entire Ayodhya city. We had recently conducted a census of stray calves and cows and found that they were about 5,000 in the city. The bulls and the oxen have not been counted yet although estimates put the figure at 7,000,” the veterinary department official said.

“Our target is to take all of them into the cowsheds. The new scheme would cost around Rs 30 lakh to the state exchequer. We are already giving between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 40 lakh a year to over a dozen public and private cowsheds in Ayodhya. We may increase the budget in winter. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath wants Ayodhya to look beautiful. So we have to decorate everything,” the official said.

A journalist based in Ayodhya said: “There are over 4,000 beggars in Ayodhya, who sleep in the open near the famous temples. Then there are on average 6,000 poor pilgrims who also sleep in the open on any given day because they cannot afford to pay for hotels. Ayodhya will not look beautiful without making arrangements for these poor people.”