NEW DELHI: National Green Tribunal, the apex environmental court of the country, has on Wednesday issued notice to the Government of India on a plea seeking ban of ‘desi’ cow slaughter nationwide.

This petition was filed by Ashwini Kumar, advocate and environmental activist based on government data that clearly shows that there is a steep decline in the ‘desi’ cow population of the country. Indian indigenous cow are being replaced across the country by exotic and cross-bred cows which are being imported from Europe, Australia and The United States.

Ashwini Kumar has said that on one hand Indian farmers and agriculturists are being made to believe that foreign exotic breed of cows are genetically capable of producing more milk than indigenous cows whereas countries like Brazil and Argentina have been importing pure-bred Indian ‘desi’ cows like Gir, Sahiwal and Red Sindhi for years because these Indian breed have been consistently producing more milk than any other foreign exotic breed.

The advocate further added that, “Take for example a pure breed Gir from Brazil named Quimbanda which made a record of delivering 10,230 kiloliters of milk in a year which equates to a daily yield of 56 kilo liters of milk. Due to the increasing influx of foreign exotic breed in India, Indian indigenous cows are being sold to slaughter houses for their meat and leather and Indian farmers are completely unaware that the very same indigenous breed are flourishing in different parts of the world.”

“Only if the National Green Tribunal orders nationwide ban on slaughter can we save the critically declining population of the Indian desi cows"