Days ahead of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s flagship Resurgent Rajasthan investment summit project, the state government amended the Rajasthan Investment Promotion Scheme, ending investment subsidy to “beef meat” processing units in the state. In an order passed Tuesday, the tax division of the finance department made changes to the RIPS, putting beef meat processing units in the list of businesses that would not be eligible for subsidies or exemptions of any kind under the scheme. “In Annexure-I appended to the scheme.the following serial numbers 6,7,8 and 9 and entries thereto shall be added with immediate effect,” directs point number 16 of the order. [related-post] Among these, entry 7 pertains to “beef meat processing units”. The no-incentive “negative list” is contained in Annexure-I of the scheme document and includes businesses like tobacco and liquor manufacturing units. Entries 6, 8 and 9 in the order include vegetable milling, processing units discharging toxic effluents and production of cereals/pulses seeds except those provided specifically in the Rajasthan agro-processing and agri-marketing promotion policy 2015. Since Rajasthan does not allow processing or sale of cow meat, the order either intends to put in place a pre-emptive provision or relates to units processing buffalo meat. However, officials in the finance department seemed unsure about what constituted “beef meat” processing units. “We only pass the order, based on inputs from the department or ministry concerned. I am not sure if there is any existing subsidy for beef meat processing units in Rajasthan,” a senior finance ministry official told this correspondent. Rajasthan does not allow sale of cow meat but has a thriving buffalo meat industry. Agriculture minister Prabhu Lal Saini said the state has never allowed cow meat processing industries so the question of subsidy to such units did not arise. “Rajasthan has never had any cow meat processing industry. And it will never have in the future also. The term beef meat here probably means buffalo meat,” Saini told The Indian Express. “We are in fact bringing a very strict anti-cow slaughter law. It is pending presidential assent. Once it comes into force, any person found with even a dead part of a cow will be punishable with seven years imprisonment,” he said.
