ludhiana laali was like a child to surjit singh a small dairy farmer of a village in samrala but surjit lost her to lumpy skin disease lsd which wrecked havoc among the cattle across several states including punjab ever since losing one of his prized cows surjit has slipped into depression there are several cattle owners like him in the state including ludhiana district who have taken help of psychiatrists to deal with stressrelated disorders following the death of their cattle due to lsddr anshu gupta a city based psychiatrist said given the emotional bonding between humans and cattle owners feel depressed when their cattle die earlier we used to get an occasional case wherein a person would have depression following the death of a pet however in last few months i have got many such farmers who have shown symptoms of mental stress after their buffalo or cow has died of lsd out of around seven to eight such cases reported in a week 2 to 3 are those who didnt have past history of mental ailments such patients belong to almost all districts of the state and various areas of ludhiana district i have got some patients from neighbouring himachal pradesh as well for all these people cattle were an important part of their lives he said with passage of time many of them heal on their own said dr sandeep goel a psychiatrist at cmch he said such patients dont come directly with mental health issues mental health experts said there is an economic aspect to the problem too i have seen such patients who feel helpless after the death of their cattle due to lsd such helplessness is the worst feeling they suffer from depression which is caused mostly due to mental stress besides the emotional bonding they are sad to lose their source of income as well it also a fact that each cattle cost lakhs said dr ranjive mahajan head of department of psychiatry at dmch i have got a few cases from abohar and fazilka areas too he said experts said besides giving such patients antidepressants they also tell them about stress management techniques members of a dairy farmer association said more than emotional issues the farmers suffered economically in punjab more than 15 lakh cattle may have died of lsd the death rate of such disease has been around 67 the dairy farmers small and big have suffered economic losses we had asked the state government to declare lsd as epidemic and compensate the farmers for the loss the chief minister had told us that they will take this up with the central government said daljit singh sadarpura president of progressive dairy farmers association