What is the issue?
The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to impose a 2% gau Raksha (cow welfare) cess on excise items.
What are the recent decisions?
- Apart from the cow cess, the government will also levy a 0.5% cess on state-operated tolls.
- It has also increased the levy on the tax revenue of the UP Agricultural Marketing Board, or Mandi Parishad, from 1% to 2%.
- The money will be used to set up and run “gauvansh ashray asthals” (cattle shelters).
- These shelters are to be made functional in all villages, panchayats, municipalities and municipal corporations.
- These will be run by urban and rural civic bodies and are aimed at tackling the growing menace of stray cattle in the state.
- Additionally, money from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will be used to fund these cowsheds.
- Also, 8 profit-making public sector undertakings have to contribute 0.5% of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) kitty towards the cow shelter scheme.
- The aim is to put in place a cowshed with a capacity of accommodating a minimum 1,000 animals in every district.
What is the cattle trade scenario in UP?
- With new government in UP in 2017, one of the first decisions was to shut down all illegal slaughterhouses.
- The government adopted a zero-tolerance approach to cow smuggling.
- Certainly, illegal slaughterhouses should not be allowed to carry on.
- But the state government did nothing to find any alternative means of livelihood for these small and marginal businessmen and their employees.
- The decision completely upset the dynamics of the meat trade in the state with adverse backward linkages.
- Along with small traders associated with the meat industry, farmers also suffered.
- Cattle owners, who in the past used to sell unproductive animals to slaughterhouses, now simply abandoned them.
- Reportedly, desperate farmers locked up abandoned cattle in schools and government buildings for fear of crop damage.
- The plight of the cattle is even worse, many of which are dying of starvation or asphyxiation.
- Making matters worse, there was rise of violence unleashed by the "gaurakshaks" (cow-protectors), who often penalised even those who traded in buffaloes.
Why is it not a healthy move?
- UP is not the first state in the country to impose such a cess.
- Punjab levied a similar cess and Rajasthan imposed a cow surcharge, without any real benefits to show for it.
- Passing the burden on people for cow protection, a policy responsibility of the government, seems unfair.
- A cultural affection for cows has happily coexisted with trade in cattle for ages.
- So restrictions on the cattle trade do not make any commercial sense.
- Thus, instead of imposing a cess, the government should reconsider its trade policy.
Source: Business Standard
