By Apurva Bhatt
It took 19 long years for the President to give its assent to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill to ban beef and on Tuesday when the President signed the bill there was joy amongst many. Rajiv Jain, a animal activist who was supporting the bill passed by the BJP-SS government in 1995 says, “We are not against meat eaters its a ban on cow meet not buffalo meat. This should have happened long back.” It must be noted that the
slaughter of cows was previously prohibited in the state under the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act of 1976. However, the passage of the new Act will ban the slaughter of bulls as well as bullocks, which was previously allowed based on a fit-for-slaughter certificate.
The new Act will, however, allow slaughter of water buffaloes, which provides carabeef — generally seen as an inferior quality meat that makes up only 25 per cent of the total beef market in the state. Beef traders claim the move will not only render thousands jobless, but will also drive up the cost of other meats in the state. According to the new rule now, anyone found to be selling beef or in possession of it whether in a hotel or home can be jailed for five years and fined Rs 10,000.
The beef trade in the state is largely controlled by Muslims of the Qureshi caste. “This will mean there will be hundreds of people jobless. Also the prices of other meat products will rise and will create economic disturbance,” says president of the Mumbai Suburban Beef Dealer Association Mohammed Qureshi . Beef, generally seen as the poor man’s meat, costs almost a third of mutton. Mumbai alone consumes nearly 90,000 kg of mutton every day, sold through 900 licensed stalls and an equal number of illegal stalls. According to sources beef traders are checking if they can take legal recourse. “We are now holding deliberations to see if we can challenge this in any way. The beef traders have been impacted but it will be the farmers who will be affected the most.” Said a beef trader from Deonar.
