After Kerala, Karnataka & West Bengal, Tripura says no to Centre’s cattle trade rules

Tripura agriculture minister said the rules were against the interests of the people even as Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan asked his counterparts in other states to oppose the ban.

Updated on: May 31, 2017, 17:21:45 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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After Kerala, West Bengal and Karnataka, Left-ruled Tripura has said it will not implement the Centre’s ban on sale of cattle for slaughter through animal markets in the wake of outrage against the new rules that impact the livelihood of poor Dalits and Muslims.

Police remove members of RSYF in Chennai, protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre’s ban on the sale of cows for slaughter through animal markets. (AFP)

“The new cattle trade and slaughter rules framed by the Central government are against the interests of the people. We will not implement them,” Tripura’s agriculture and animal resources minister Aghore Debbarma said on Wednesday.

Karnataka chief minister K Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said it is not mandatory to follow every notification issued by the Centre.

“...this matter is a state issue,” he said, in response to Centre’s restriction on country’s biggest source of cattle for slaughter —animal markets.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has asked chief ministers of other states to raise their voices against restrictions imposed on cattle trade, saying that the Centre’s “anti-democratic” notification is an attempt to usurp the state governments’ powers in the guise of rules under a Central Act.

Vijayan had written to the chief ministers saying the restrictions imposed on cattle trade would adversely affect the livelihood of millions of people, especially those in agriculture and related sectors.

The Kerala CM also said that the Centre’s new rule is an impermissible encroachment into the domain of the state legislatures which is a clear “violation of the spirit of federalism”.

In the wake of the backlash, environment minister Harsh Vardhan directed officials to consider amending the rules to remove buffalo from the definition of cattle, signifying that sale of buffalo for slaughter would be allowed through animal markets.

“We are looking at the representations received and an appropriate decision will be taken,” environment secretary A N Jha told agencies.

In a statement, the ministry said the prime focus of the regulation is to protect animals from cruelty and not to regulate existing cattle trade for slaughter houses.

“The livestock markets are intended to become hubs for trade for animal for agriculture through this process and animal for slaughter will have to be bought from the farmers at the farms. The notified rules will remove the scope of illegal sale and smuggling of cattle which is a major concern,” the ministry said.

The ministry also said the rules were notified following the 2016 directions of the Supreme Court in response to a petition filed by animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi.

(With inputs from agencies)

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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