Most appeals ask for whatever you can give. We ask for ₹299, and a number that specific invites a fair question: why that, and not ₹250 or ₹500?
One cow, one day
₹299 is our working figure for keeping one cow fed and cared for through a single day at Toopran. It is not a symbolic price. It is built from the things that actually leave our store every morning.
- Green fodder and dry fodder. The largest single cost, and the one that swings hardest with the season. In a dry summer, the same quantity costs noticeably more than it does after good rain.
- Concentrate feed for cows who are recovering, pregnant, or nursing. A healthy adult cow grazing well needs less; a rescue who arrived with her ribs showing needs considerably more for months.
- Clean water, and the pumping and storage that puts it in front of her.
- Caretaker time. Feeding, cleaning, watching for the animal who is off her food today. This is labour, and it is the difference between a shelter and a gaushala.
- A share of routine healthcare. Deworming, hoof care, vaccination, minor wounds. Emergencies sit outside this figure.
If ₹299 supports a day of cow care, we should be able to explain how we arrived at ₹299. Transparency is not an annual report. It is a daily responsibility.
What it is not
It is not an average across a whole year of every expense we have. Land, sheds, water infrastructure, transport for a rescue, a surgery: those are real costs and they are met separately. Folding them into a daily feeding figure would make the number bigger and less honest.
Why we publish the reasoning at all
Because the alternative is asking you to trust a number we cannot explain, and we would rather not build anything on that. If our costs change, this figure changes, and we will say so here.
[Note for the Kāmya team: replace this section with the verified rupee breakdown once the current month's costing is confirmed.]