It will be a few days before the Victoria carriages bid goodbye to the city as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will have to wait for the courts written order to begin seizing the horses. There 130 Victorias and around 170 horses in the city. On Wednesday,the Bombay High Court directed the BMC to seize the carriage horses which are kept in unlicensed stables in the city. This means a virtual ban on Victoria carriages as according to the BMC,out of the ten stables in the city,nine are illegal. This order was in response to a PIL filed by NGO Animals and Birds Charitable Trust which alleged the horses were being ill-treated and kept in a pathetic condition. However,the implementation of the order will take a couple of days as the BMC is awaiting the written order of the court. We have already informed our law department. As soon as the order is received,we will begin seizing the horses, said Anil Bandivadekar,executive health officer,BMC. Normally,the order takes anywhere between two days and a week to arrive. Even the plan to transfer the horses will take another 15 days to be prepared as the court has directed the Bombay Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA),the trust officials and the BMC to work out the modalities of the shift. Technical details like how many horses will be shifted at one time and how the process will take place need to be decided. The next hearing of the court is in 15 days and only after the courts order can the horses be shifted, said Lt Col JC Khanna (retd),secretary,BSPCA. The trust has given an undertaking that it will keep and take care of the horses in a plot it owns in Panvel. Meanwhile,Victoria drivers are in a state of shock from the order and insist they take good care of the animals. There are 107 registered Victoria drivers in the city. Out of the Rs 700 I earn from this work daily,around half goes in feeding of the horse and maintenance of the carriage. I feed my family with the rest. Why would I harm the animal which gives me my livelihood? asked 45-year-old Prakash Verma,who has been in this business since 1984. I agree that there are some riders who ill-treat the animals and ply more people than prescribed,but why are the rest of us being punished for their behaviour? It is a case of a few rotten apples spoiling it for the rest of us, said Kailash Gautam from Uttar Pradesh who has been a driver for over a decade. All of us have licences for both the horses and the carriages and we truly care for the animals. In fact,I have myself admonished many of my friends for taking more people than allowed. Our livelihood is being taken away for no fault of ours and I think all this talk of providing us with alternative jobs is a false promise, said 21-year-old Jaffar Ahmed. However,animal lovers in the city have welcomed the decision saying it has been a hard and long-fought battle. We are very happy with the decision as there have been many accidents and injuries to these horses over the years. Their feeding is erratic,they are made to ply on a hard surface at high speed and tied in bylanes all night, said Khanna.
