Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb, a man notorious for making preposterous statements, on November 4, said that unlike setting up big industries in which “one has to invest Rs 10,000 crore for employing 2000 people”, giving 10,000 cows to 5,000 families will help people start earning in “6 months”.

Speaking at an executive committee meeting of Tripura Pradesh Krishak Morcha, Deb announced that the state government will launch a scheme for distributing cows among 5000 families to combat malnutrition and generate employment in the state, adding that farmers across the state would be given cows by facilitating bank loans for them — the interest incurred on which would be borne by the state government.

Also Read: CPI(M) Lodges Police Complaint Against BJP For Laying Foundation Stone For Ram Temple In Tripura

In a press statement issued by the government, an exercise to identify villages for this scheme was also announced and this project would come into action in December.

In the statement, Deb said: “This project will help to solve unemployment in the state to some extent. It will go a long way in fulfilling demand of milk in the state. We shall be able to combat malnutrition by it as well.”

Also Read: Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb: PM Modi’s One Brother Runs A Grocery Shop, Another Drives An Auto

This is not the first time Deb has conflated cows and development. Earlier this year, in April, Deb’s proposed solution to unemployment in the state was for the youth to rear cows and open “paan” shops instead of chasing government jobs. “The youth here run after political parties for several years to get a government job and waste the vital time of their life, had the same youth instead of running after parties set up a paan shop he would have by now had a bank balance of Rs 5 lakhs,” he had said, adding that, “Every household must rear a cow. Here milk sells for Rs 50 a litre. Had a graduate who has been searching for employment in the last 10 years reared a cow, then their bank balance would have been Rs 10 lakh by now.”

Rampant unemployment in Tripura, one mustn’t forget, was one of the key reasons why former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s communist government was voted out in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party.