NEW DELHI, MAY 26 (AGENCIES): The government has banned the sale of cows and buffalo 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 nation-wide ban on cattle slaughter or its trade. But they will squeeze supplies to India’s Rs 1-lakh crore meat industry which sources about 90% of its requirement from animal markets. The rest comes for licensed breeders. Experts say the rules will hurt the mostly Muslim traders who face mounting violence by 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 old cattle. Farmers who can’t take care of their cattle will have to pay for their upkeep in shelters. 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. More than 99% Indians now live in areas under cow protection laws, Gujarat has strictest rules “Take an undertaking that the animals are bought for agriculture purposes and not for slaughter,” reads a directive to committees overseeing animal markets in the rule notified under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act of 1960 that gives the Centre powers over animal welfare. 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. Considered holy by many Hindus, cows are a sensitive political topic and have gained in importance since Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed to power in 2014 as several BJP-ruled states enacted strict laws to punish cow slaughter. But many say the expanding protection for bovines is a proxy war against Dalits and Muslims – as exemplified by the lynching of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in Rajasthan in April or the flogging of Dalit men in Gujarat’s Una last year. Slaughter of milch cows is banned in all states except in Kerala and in parts of north-east India. The annual meat business in India is estimated to be around Rs one lakh crore with exports worth Rs 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”.
