Bhagat told Swarajya that the annual cow cess from power bills alone exceeds Rs 8 crore. “Out of 160 civic bodies in Punjab, 141 passed resolutions for imposing the cess on power consumption. It must be around Rs 8-8.15 crore. The least they should do is waive off power bills and restore free power. But I have been told by officials that a large part of the money collected has already been used for other works.”

Gupta said gaushalas have also been asked to pay for the duration for which they were promised free power. “The government is being highly unfair,” he said. “If they can waive off farmer loans running into tens of crores, why can’t they do it for our power bills? It’s just seven crores!” he said.

But if not to these gaushalas, then where is the cow cess going? Bhagat says this money did not come to the gaushalas even in the past. “The SAD-BJP government made a great show of being cow lovers, but did little,” he said.

Bhagat suspects misuse of the cow cess. “The last government spent Rs 35 crore to build a cattle pond in each of the 22 districts, with a capacity of 2,000-2,500 cows each. My guess is that not even 35 per cent of this grant was actually spent on the cattle ponds.”

Some months ago, Bhagat wrote to the State Vigilance Bureau to probe the alleged bungling of funds in building sheds and other infrastructure at gaushalas in Nawanshahr, Rupnagar, Tarn Taran, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, and Gurdaspur districts. The probe is on.

“Even now, most of the cess revenue is diverted to these government cattle ponds and the funds are misused,” said Bhagat.

“But the new government is much more insensitive to the issue of cows,” he said.

Bhagat says this “apathy” comes from political rivalry. “They [Amarinder Singh government] want to undo what the previous government enforced. Otherwise seven crores is a paltry amount for them,” he said.

He added that a bigger problem is that the new Chief Minister is “inaccessible”. “We haven’t yet been given any opportunity to meet [Singh]. He remains inaccessible. At least the previous government heard us,” Bhagat said.

Swarajya tried to talk to municipal corporation officials in Ludhiana and Jalandhar, but they told us that their job was only to collect the tax. We tried talking to the Local Bodies Minister, Navjot Singh Sidhu, but his mobile phone was switched off.

Meanwhile, the agitated gaushala trusts say the government is taking advantage of their religious sentiments.

Vinay Singal is a Ludhiana-based businessman who heads one Krishna Balram Gaushala Trust that operates a cow shelter in Dullon Khurd for around 500 cows. He said the trustees do it because they hold gau sewa (cow service) in high esteem, but the government exploits this sentiment. “We do gau sewa as part of our religious ethos. We try to bring as many stray cows as we can so they live with dignity. We run gaushalas like old-age homes for cows. But what if we don’t? The stray cattle would become a nightmare for the civic bodies and cause frequent traffic snarls. They wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he said.

“But we get nothing in return,” he added.