Centre stifles cattle trade with new rules
NEW DELHI: The government has banned the sale of cows and buffaloes for slaughter at animal markets across India, rules that will hurt millions of poor farmers and squeeze supplies to the country’s meat industry.
The central regulation for cattle business notified this week allows only farmland owners to trade at animal markets. The notification covers bulls, bullocks, cows, buffalos, steers, heifers and calves, as well as the camel trade.
The new rules do not amount to a blanket ban on cattle trade or their slaughter, and licensed breeding remains legal. But the move will crimp supplies to the country’s ₹1-lakh crore meat and allied industries which source about 90% of their requirements from animal markets. The regulation is silent on cattle sales by individuals, too.
Experts say the rules will hurt Muslim meat and leather traders who face mounting violence at the hands of increasingly assertive cow vigilante groups. Farmers will also be hit because they will be deprived of a traditional source of income from selling non-milch and ageing cattle.
To be implemented in the next three months, the move introduces lots of paperwork for cow traders who are mostly poor and illiterate. For instance, before the trade, both seller and buyer will have to produce identity and farmland ownership documents.
After buying a cow, a trader must make five copies of proof of sale and submit them at the local revenue office, the local veterinary doctor in the district of the purchaser, animal market committee, apart from one each for seller and buyer.
“Take an undertaking that the animals are bought for agriculture purposes and not slaughter,” reads a directive to committees overseeing animal markets.
The new rules were approved by former environment minister Anil Madhav Dave before his death last week, ministry sources told HT. The ministry drafted the rules on Supreme Court directions aimed at improving condition of animals in these markets.
The annual meat business in India is estimated to be around ₹1 lakh crore with exports worth ₹26,303 crore in 2016-17. Uttar Pradesh is the market leader followed by Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Telangana. Most states in India hold weekly animal markets and many states operate them near borders to attract traders from neighbouring states.
The meat industry worries it will come to a “standstill”.
“We are shocked,” SN Sabbarwal director general of All India Meat Exporters Association told HT. “Only a few slaughter houses get animals from breeders.”
Regulating cattle trade is a state subject but animal welfare is overseen by the Centre. So the environment ministry notified the rules under the animal welfare law but gave district administrations the power to enforce them. The environment ministry’s eight-page rule also bans setting of animal markets within 50 km of an international border and 25 km of a state border. Taking animal outside the state will require special approval of the state government nominee.