This is the dramatic moment two calves stuck in a sewer were rescued in India.

Footage shows one of the bovines stranded in the waterway before volunteers pulled it to safety using a rope tied around its body in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, on Wednesday night, April 2.

The Atal Kamdhenu Gau Sewa Sansthan team, led by the NGO's chairman, Gaurav Mishra, helped recover the stray cow.

Gaurav said: 'We thought only one calf had fallen, but after retrieving it from the drain near Sohagpur Garhi, we discovered the other one.'

In another rescue effort, the team secured a cord around the second calf's body and helped it out of the dirty channel.

India has hundreds of thousands of cows roaming its streets.

It is party due to devout locals who follow Hindu customs, with cows regarded as sacred animals that cannot be eaten or slaughtered once they have stopped producing milk. The majority of states ban the sale or slaughter of cows.

Instead of dealing with the economic burden of keeping their spent cattle, many farmers let the beasts roam the streets - leading to chaos when the animals become agitated and turn their fury on humans.