New nationwide rules ban sale of cattle for slaughter

NEW DELHI: In a move that can fundamentally change India’s meat industry, the environment ministry has notified stringent new rules that ban sale and purchase of cattle from any animal/livestock market for purposes of slaughter or religious sacrifice.

The ministry has also defined an animal market widely. The new rules define an “animal market” as a marketplace or any other premises to which animals are brought from other places and exposed for sale or auction and includes any lairage adjoining a market or a slaughterhouse. The combined effect of the two rules may greatly reduce sale of animals for slaughter, including buffaloes.

The new rules define cattle as “a bovine animal including bulls, bullocks, cows, buffaloes, steers, heifers and calves and includes camels”. No animal market in the country will be able to sell any of these animals for slaughter under the now-notified Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017, issued under Section 38 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, by the environment ministry.

The rules are silent on whether there are legal ways to procure cattle of any kind for slaughter. Many states allow sale of old and unfit animals for slaughter, but there’s no such provision in the Central Rule notified now. Environment minister Harsh Vardhan said the move was aimed at preventing cruelty against animals.

“The Centre has brought in the rule only to regulate animal markets and ensure the welfare of cattle. It only requires that the seller and purchaser submit an undertaking that the animal is not for slaughter. There is no other issue in this,” he told reporters.