The new rules banning sale of cattle for slaughter are bound to adversely impact not only animal trade, but also the burgeoning practice of rearing of livestock for beef, in the formerly undivided Adilabad district.
The backward Adilabad and Kumram Bheem Asifabad districts are considered to be among the largest markets of beef animals in the country which account for the sale of more than 12,000 to 15,000 bullocks every month, according to conservative estimates.
Md. Imran, a middleman in cattle trade who claims to supply animals, including bullocks and buffaloes to abbattoirs around Hyderabad, expressed concern over the new rules.
He said the trade will collapse completely which will affect the farmers more.
Farmers will suffer
“Farmers sell their cattle either when the animals are of no use or when they are in distress.
In either cases, farmers will suffer and stand to lose and the loss would amount to crores of rupees every year,” Mr. Imran opined.
Another cattle trader predicted that the new rules will pave way for corruption. “We will be blackmailed into giving bribes even if we are merely transporting animals for use in farms,” he said, expressing his fears.
The cumulative population of cattle and buffaloes in the districts of Adilabad, Kumram Bheem Asifabad and Nirmal is nearly 13 lakhs against the State’s population of over 90 lakhs. The per capita density of cattle as per the Report on Telangana Districts’ Human Development Index is the highest in the State in the first three districts averaging over 530 animals per 1,000 population.
Restricted use
However, the use of animals in farming is restricted in these districts and in Mancherial as not much of the geographical area comes under agriculture, the cumulative cropped area in the four districts is about 6 lakh hectares against a total geographical area of 16 lakh hectares.
Hence, a good number of them find their way to weekly cattle shandies.
The three-day-a-week cattle market in Adilabad district headquarters is perhaps the largest one, wherein a minimum of 6,000 cattle are sold every month, the remaining sold in markets at Ichoda, Utnoor and Mutnoor in Adilabad district and Jainoor and Koutala in KB Asifabad.
While beef animals are sold on Saturdays and Sundays, Mondays have been allocated for sale of farm animals by traders in Adilabad.
Big market
The largest cattle market has animals arriving from as far as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Most of these animals are healthy and of productive age, but are sold according to their weight, the minimum and maximum price per healthy animal varying between ₹ 10,000 and ₹ 25,000.
