Centre sets aside ₹50 crore to cover 40 million cattle

NEW DELHI: The Centre is set to assign each of the country’s milkproducing cows a identity card or UID similar to the Aadhaar number allotted to every Indian and the deliverable targets in this year’s Union Budget show ₹50 crore assigned for the project to cover 40 million cattle.

In 2015, a government committee had recommended UID for cows to prevent their trafficking following a Supreme Court direction that heard a plea to stop cow smuggling.

According to a 2015 expert committee’s recommendations, cattle owners will be responsible for the registration of the cows. “Registration proof must be maintained by the owner of the cattle which may be transferred to the next owner in case a legitimate sale/transfer takes place,” it had stated.

Requesting anonymity, a dairy department official said the agriculture ministry, which will implement the programme, has already acquired the UID technology, which is a cheap, tamperproof polyurethane tag containing a cow’s biological details like breed, age, sex, height and special body marks etc. Each card will cost ₹8-10.

First proposed two years ago, the animal UID scheme, called Pashu Sanjivini, is part of a larger programme dedicated to dairy and fisheries sectors. According to experts, growth in these sectors is important if the government wants to achieve its target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.

Economists said it would be hard to achieve this target through cultivation alone.