madurai this year when the sturdy bulls run around the jallikattu arena dodging the youth chasing them many of them could well be sporting a gps gadget a group of bull owners from sivaganga and trichy have bought the gps equipment to be fitted on the bulls so that they can be traced easily if they run out of the arena with the bulls costing anything between rs 75000 to 25 lakh the bull owners are not ready to take any chances it has become a routine affair during jallikattu for bulls to run out of the arena they run into villages fields or adjoining forests it will take at least 10 people to search them for days at the end there is no assurance that they would be found says t rajesh joint secretary of jallikattu pathukappu kuzhu the bull owners have bought eight gadgets costing rs 8000 and have planned to buy more after studying the effectiveness at alanganallur jallikattu during pongal we want to set an example so that more owners would opt for the technology he said rajesh says if the gps gadget the size of a mobile phone bluetooth istied to the bull they can track its movements on their android phones and find the bull we will approach the animal welfare board of india and state animal husbandry department for permission we hope they will give permission as it involves the safety of the bull rajesh said bulls owners who had lost animals in the past struck upon the idea after watching channels like discovery which show wild animals being tracked with the help of electronic collars t ondiraj state secretary of veera vilayattu pathukappu peravai who has planned to fit gps gadgets on three of his bulls says in the past the bulls have strayed out and have fallen into wells and drowned dozens of such bulls that ran away could be seen in the forests adjoining villages in sivaganga they have now become wild and cant be caught the equipment would come in handy to catch the bulls early he said rajesh said they have also readied an airconditioned bull caravan to take the bulls to various villages where jallikattu is organised the caravan has six cabins each with a fan and provision to drain away dung and urine the body of the caravan was built in namakkal the caravan would also have a monitor connected to the blue tooth gadget on the bulls an animal husbandry department official said that they would have to consider some factors before giving the nod we have to see if such gadgets affect the normal behaviour of the bulls the official said jallikkatu organizers and animal rights activists have been at loggerheads with the latter moving courts in the past to ban the event at present jallikattu perceived as an expression of their cultural tradition by peasant communities are allowed only after the organizers follow stringent conditions meant to ensure that the animals are not