Explained: Gujarat’s Bill to regulate stray cattle in urban areas

Existing laws

The Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporation Act 1948 and The Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963 provide for control of animal nuisance in urban areas. Animal nuisance control is treated as a civic service under this act. With more resources at their disposal, the municipal corporations have animal nuisance control departments (ANCDs) which impound stray cattle, keep them in cattle pounds and if not claimed by owners within a week, seize them and send them to panjarapoles (charitable organisations working for animal welfare). However, most municipalities lack resources and facilities for carrying out such operations. Some time ago, Gandhidham municipality in Kutch had impounded 600 bulls and male calves after complaints from residents. But eventually, the civic body was forced to let them loose in a gradual manner as it ran out of resources to maintain them. ANCDs initiate criminal action under Section 91 of Gujarat Police Act, 1951. But courts allow release of cattle on payment of Rs 200 fine. Presently, municipal corporations charge Rs 1,000 fine and up to Rs 700 maintenance cost per cattle head per day from owners who come to claim their cattle after being impounded by civic bodies. According to the Bill, the new law will replace the Gujarat Essential Commodities and Cattle (Control) Act, 2005.

Provisions in proposed law

The proposed law makes it mandatory to obtain a licence from a local authority (LA, a municipal corporation or municipality) to keep cattle which include buffaloes, cows, their calves and heifers, bulls, bullocks, goats, sheep and donkeys. “The licence is to ensure that owners have sufficient space for cows. We are thinking to run panjrapoles on PPP… Imagine what harm it does when cows eat plastic and garbage and small children drink their milk,” said Minister of State for Urban Development Vinod Moradiya in the Assembly.

For obtaining such a licence, a cattle-owner will have to submit details of a cattle-shed where he proposes to keep his cattle, get each of his cattle-head tagged and submit its details to LA. Any cattle outside the licensed cattle-sheds will be impounded. Also, the proposed law empowers the LAs and the state government to notify an entire urban area or part thereof as prohibited zone for cattle. The government can also extend jurisdiction of the proposed new act to an area contiguous to a notified urban area. It also restricts sale of fodder to notified areas only and provides for penalty to fodder-sellers for violations. The penalty for selling fodder was the only part the government scaled down before passing the Bill. So, from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 the penalty has been reduced to Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000. The LAs will accept unproductive or undesirable cattle from maldharis (cattle-rearers) on payment of a one-time fee and keep them in permanent cattle-sheds to be set up with the help of government, private players and civil society. However, cattle-herders will be required to pay LAs for disposal of carcasses in case cattle die in their custody. Managers or owners of permanent cattle-sheds will also be fined if cattle break loose from their facilities.

Penal Provisions

Offences registered under the proposed law will be cognisable but bailable. Within three months of the proposed new act being notified, cattle-owners in urban areas will have to obtain licences. If a person is convicted of keeping cattle without licence thereafter, he’ll be liable for one-year imprisonment or fine up to Rs 20,000 or both. Those assaulting staff of LAs or deterring them from performing their duties or driving away cattle during such a drive will also get one year jail and be fined up to Rs 1 lakh. Repeated offences will attract two years in jail and fine up to Rs 5 lakh. Those conducting surveillance of teams of LAs and alerting cattle-herders about their movement will also be liable to be punished with three months of imprisonment and fine and double the duration in case of repeated offence. The cases registered by police under the proposed act will be triable by a judicial magistrate (first class).

Heavy fines

If a cattle-owner wants to claim his impounded cattle, he will have to pay Rs 5,000 in the first instance and Rs 10,000 in the second instance. If the same cattle head strays on the road and is impounded for the third time, the fine will be Rs 15,000 and a criminal case will be registered against its owner.

Seriousness of the menace

Almost all major cities and towns have been grappling with the stray cattle menace. Over the past eight years, Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has impounded 72,000 cattle heads straying on city roads. Besides the loss of human lives and injuries in accidents involving cattle on city roads, the problem is exacting a heavy financial cost also. RMC spends lakhs on maintaining the impounded and unclaimed cattle-heads and transporting them to panjrapoles as far away as Surat in south Gujarat and Palanpur in north Gujarat. Civic officers say the problem has been exacerbated by bullocks losing their relevance due to advent of mechanisation in agricultural operations and prohibition on their slaughter as well as threats of cow vigilante groups. In rural areas, feral cattle, including bulls and unproductive cows destroy standing crops, says an officer, adding, farmers are herding such feral cattle together and releasing them in urban areas.

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Cattle-herders’ protests

The maldharis or herdsmen, who have protested against the proposed law, are found residing in pockets of all cities and towns in Gujarat. The cattle rearing community, which forms part of the Other Backward Classes (OBC), residing in urban areas are usually members of Rabari, Bharvad, Gadhvi, Ahir and Jat Muslim communities. They believe their  occupation of rearing cows amounts to service to gaumata (the cow mother), an issue the ruling BJP has claimed to be sensitive about. They are also demanding that maldharis be provided space to keep their cattle before enacting a new law, else they will lose their source of livelihood.

Maldharis roughly form 10 per cent of Gujarat’s population, their concentration being higher in Saurashtra, Kutch and North Gujarat.