All cows, their calves, oxen and bulls in the country will be tagged with a tamper-proof Unique Identification Number (UIN) to stop their smuggling.
Informing the court about the decision which was in the works since the NDA government took office in 2014, solicitor general Ranjit Kumar informed the bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud
Each animal will be tagged with a UIN with proper records of identification details - age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body colour, horn type, tail switch and special marks."
The ministry of agriculture has devised a method of tamper-proof identification of cattle using polyurethane tags with a UIN sequence. It may be made mandatory for cows and their progeny throughout India.
Already mass tagging of cattle for insurance purpose is being done by livestock development boards and animal husbandry departments in states.
A state-level data bank may be uploaded on website to be linked with the national online database.
Such cattle may be in a dairy, kanji house (shelter home) or dry dairy and a registration card has to be maintained by the owner of the cattle which may be transferred to the next owner, in case legitimate sale/transfer takes place.
In order to prevent smuggling of non-milking/retired cattle, measures may be taken to create sustainable housing models, dry dairies, in every block, which could be self-sustaining by linking its operations to production of manure and bio-gas, which may be sold at a minimum support price to the government.
This will reduce use of chemical fertilisers in agriculture.
Centre also gave details of the causes behind large-scale cattle smuggling to Bangladesh.
It said in West Bengal alone, 1,28,440 cattle were impounded by BSF accounting for 76% of seized cattle in 2016. Assam with 33,619 seized cattle came second in the list.
