MoEF proposes new law to protect animals

Penalty for ways to extract more milk from cows has higher penalties than other offences.

Updated on: Feb 18, 2011, 19:27:32 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Animals can breathe easy with Environment minister Jairam Ramesh coming up with a new draft law, which imposes a punishment of up to two years and a fine ranging between Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 for being cruel to them.

Ramesh’s new initiative may also appease his detractors in BJP and right wing parties as certain activities believed to be cruel to cows like Phooka or Dhoom Dev will invite higher penalty of Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000 and a jail term of up one year for first offence and Rs 75,000 to Rs one lakh and imprisonment up to two years for second and subsequent offices.

Introduction of air or any other substance into the female organ of a cow to draw more milk is called Phooka or doom dev.

For other forms of cruelty, a person can be fined for Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000 with a jail term of up to two years and for subsequent offences, a fine of Rs 50,000 to Rs one lakh with imprisonment between one to three years.

A person can be charged with cruelty to animal if found to be harassing animal in any form or employs an animal for labour without adequate rest and chains the animal for a long periods.

Failing to treat a sick animal or trying to abandon it or sell it is also an offence under the proposed law. Chaining an animal with heavy chain or putting hobbles around the legs is also an offence and continuous chaining would be an offence under the law. The way to carry animals in vehicle has also been defined and slaughter of animals at unregistered places has been listed as an offence.

The proposed law will replace Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which has become ineffective because of meager penalties and no administrative mechanism to implement it has been there.

The ministry has suggested that the Animal Welfare Board at the national level will provide broad policy directions and State Animal Welfare Boards will implement the provisions of the proposed law. Every slaughterhouse will have to be registered with the state board.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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