Cattle trade rules will see changes to clear misunderstandings: Harsh Vardhan

The central government has received representations from slaughter houses and allied industries in the wake of the new cattle trade rules.

Updated on: Jul 5, 2017, 13:15:42 IST

New Delhi, Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan

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The controversial rules prohibiting sale of cows and buffaloes for slaughter will be changed to clear “doubts and misinterpretations”, environment minister Harsh Vardhan said on Tuesday in comments that came after widespread outrage in several states.

This photo taken on May 27, 2017 shows an Indian farmer carrying a container of a milk past cattle feeding at a farm before the milk is picked up by milkmen for delivery on the outskirts of Jalandhar. (AFP)

The new rules do not amount to a blanket ban on cattle trade or their slaughter, and licensed breeding remains legal but experts say they can crimp supplies to the country’s Rs 1-lakh crore meat and allied industries that source about 90% of their requirements from animal markets.

“The rules have created a lot of misunderstanding,” Vardhan told Hindustan Times. “We are looking at bringing changes in the language to clear doubts, misinterpretations and misconceptions created after the rules were notified”.

Vardhan said the changes are yet be to finalised.

The ministry has received representations from slaughter houses and allied industries which fear the rules will kill their business.

State governments and non-government organisations have also asked the environment ministry to amend the rules, saying livelihood sources of the poor, especially Muslims and Dalits, would be crippled.

Vardhan said the government was looking at “improving” the rules so that the misconceptions created in different parts of the country are cleared.

“The rules are not against slaughter of animals or against the farmers as the perception is being created. The rules cause no loss to farmers as they are allowed to sell the animals to traders,” he said.

The minister also debunked allegations the government was hell-bent on changing eating habits of people, as claimed by Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan after the rules were notified on May 23.

Several Youth Congress leaders were booked for organising a beef party in Kerala and an IIT student was assaulted by fringe Hindu groups for having a similar party in the premier technological institute.

Ministry sources ruled out the possibility of the changes soon, saying they would wait for a June 15 Supreme Court hearing on a batch of petitions challenging the legality of the notification.

The Centre is on the backfoot since the rules were notified, with opposition from within and outside.

Left-ruled Kerala and Congress-ruled Meghalaya assemblies have passed resolutions saying they will not implement the rules. Other northeastern states are also unhappy with the rules.

Several BJP leaders in Meghalaya resigned from the party over the new rules though the party said they were about to be thrown out for indiscipline.

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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