The Maharashtra beef ban has seen a jump in trading at cattle shandies or bail bazars in Adilabad district.

The ban on beef and consequent prohibition on slaughter of bulls and bullocks in Maharashtra in March this year have seen a jump in trading at cattle shandies or bail bazars in Adilabad district, as animals from the bordering areas of the neighbouring State are being sold here.

As trading of beef cattle declined in Maharashtra, about 500 to 600 cattle sourced from poor farmers in the backward Vidarbha region of Maharashtra arrive every month in the bail bazar in Adilabad town alone.

Adilabad district shares almost all of its 350 km of northern and eastern boundaries with Vidarbha region and people across the borders have had trade relations since long time.

The geographical proximity is an advantage to cattle traders in the neighbouring region as the animal herds need to be taken to markets in Adilabad on foot.

“We brought these 36 animals from Umri village in Pandharkawda tahsil in Yavatmal district after walking the 60-km distance for 24 hours,” said Shankar Ramesh Bhandarwar, one of the three daily wage labourers herding the cattle to reach Adilabad town early on Thursday. “There is a ban on transporting animals in lorries which necessitates travel on foot,” he explained.

Not all the beef animals coming from Maharashtra are sourced to farmers in distress, according to a cattle broker in Adilabad who wished to remain anonymous. “Like farmers in Adilabad, Maharashtra villagers sell only the animals which are no longer of any use in agriculture,” he pointed out.

Over the years, this northern most district in Telangana has emerged an important centre of cattle trade thanks to the presence of the huge mechanised slaughterhouses in and around Hyderabad.

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 animals are traded for slaughter in the weekly cattle shandies at Adilabad, Ichoda, Mutnoor, Utnoor, Jainoor, Koutala, etc.

“Cattle from Maharashtra are only an addition to the local markets which have 50 per cent of the traded animals hailing from distant Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh,” disclosed Saleem Qureshi, another local middleman. “People in those States consume buffalo meat for beef and there is neither a demand for bullocks nor are there large abattoirs in those States,” he added to specify reasons for Adilabad attracting traders from comparatively faraway lands.