The general discussion on the Railway Budget concluded in Parliament this week. During the discussion, several MPs made a reference to two important documents tabled by the Railway Minister in 2009 - the ‘White Paper' on Indian Railways and the 2020 Vision document. The documents provide good insight into the operational and financial performance of Railways over the previous five years. They also throw light on the challenges that confront the Railways today. It emerges that Railways has relied heavily on increasing utilization of existing assets to manage the increase in demand. The system is otherwise severely constrained by lack of adequate capacity. Scenario so far (2004-09) Growth in traffic and earnings Rail transport demand is linked to the growth in GDP. As a result, the two main businesses of Railways – Passenger and Freight – have both seen significant increases in traffic in recent years. Passenger traffic has grown at an average rate of 10% each year. Earnings have increased at a slightly higher pace, implying that most passengers have been spared increases in fare. Standalone, passenger operations have continued to be loss making. Freight traffic has grown too, but at a lower rate of about 7% and unlike the passenger segment, freight fares have increased significantly over these years. Freight forms the backbone of Railways' revenues. Even today, it continues to account for almost two-thirds of total earnings. However, Railways’ market share in freight has decreased steadily over the past few decades - it dropped from 90% in 1950-51 to less than 30% in 2007-08. The main reasons for this decline are high pricing (to subsidize passenger travel) and lack of sufficient infrastructure. Railways are unable to provide time-tabled freight services. In addition, there are no multi-modal logistics parks that could have provided door-to-door cargo services. Infrastructure constraints Since 1950-51, route-kms have increased by just 18% and track-kms by 41%, even though freight and passenger output has gone up almost 12 times. Specific issues include:

  • Common corridor for both freight and passenger traffic - With freight trains on the same corridor, operating fast passenger trains becomes extremely difficult.
  • Concentration of traffic - More than half the total traffic moves on the golden quadrilateral and its diagonals; large parts of these sections are now already saturated.
  • Limited capacity for production of rolling stock, particularly locomotives and EMUs.

The above constraints require investment in network and capacity augmentation, including dedicated freight corridors. Hence, a substantial increase in funding is necessary. The Vision 2020 document planned to deploy Rs 14 lakh crore in the next 10 years towards development of rail infrastructure. Recent trends (as presented in the Budget 2011) This year's budget presented the actual financial performance in 2009-10, the provisional performance in 2010-11 and the targets for 2011-12 (Details can be accessed here). It also highlighted achievements on other metrics, including growth in traffic and augmentation of infrastructure (See 'Status of some key projects proposed in 2010-11'). On financials, 2009-10 was a bad year for Railways. Figures show a high Operating Ratio of 95.3%. Operating Ratio is a metric that compares operating expenses to revenues. A higher ratio indicates lower ability to generate surplus. The 2009-10 Operating Ratio is the highest since 2002. According to the Railways Minister, this can be partly attributed to higher payout in salaries and pension due to implementation of Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. Growth in passenger traffic remained high in 2010-11, at 11%. However, growth in freight traffic slowed down to 2%. Again, passenger fares remained untouched, but freight fares were increased. Railways, in 2011-12, targets an increase of 8% in both passenger and freight traffic. Financials are expected to improve. An amount of Rs. 57,630 crore has been budgeted as net plan outlay for investment in infrastructure. Last year, this figure was Rs 41,426 crore. In her opening remarks during the Budget speech in Parliament, the Minister commented that Railways forms an important backbone of any country. Lets hope it is headed in the right direction!

Last week, the Assam Legislative Assembly passed the Assam Cattle Preservation Bill, 2021.  The Bill seeks to regulate the slaughter and transportation of cattle and the sale of beef.   It replaces the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 1950, which only provided for restrictions on cattle slaughter.  In this post, we examine the Bill and compare it with other state laws on cattle preservation.  For a detailed analysis of the Bill, see here.

Cattle preservation under the Bill

The Bill prohibits the slaughter of cows of all ages.  Bulls and bullocks, on the other hand, may be slaughtered if they are: (i) over 14 years of age, or (ii) permanently incapacitated due to accidental injury or deformity.  Inter-state and intra-state transport of cattle is allowed only for agricultural or animal husbandry purposes.  This requires a permit from the competent authority (to be appointed by the state government).  Further, the Bill allows the sale of beef and beef products only at certain locations as permitted by the competent authority.  No permission for such sale will be granted in areas that are predominantly inhabited by Hindu, Jain, Sikh and other non-beef eating communities, or within a five-kilometre radius of a temple or other Hindu religious institution.

Provisions of the Bill may raise certain issues which we discuss below. 

Undue restriction on cattle transport in the north-eastern region of India

The Bill prohibits the transport of cattle from one state to another (or another country) through Assam, except with a permit that such transport is for agricultural or animal husbandry purposes.  This may lead to difficulties in movement of cattle to the entire north-eastern region of India.  First, the unique geographical location of Assam makes it an unavoidable transit state when moving goods to other north-eastern states.  Second, it is unclear why Assam may disallow transit through it for any purposes other than agriculture or animal husbandry that are allowed in the origin and destination states.  Note that the Madhya Pradesh Govansh Vadh Pratishedh Adhiniyam, 2004 provides for a separate permit called a transit permit for transporting cattle through the state.  Such permit is for the act of transport, without any conditions as to the purpose of transport.

Unrestricted outward transport of cattle to states that regulate slaughter differently from Assam

The Bill restricts the transport of cattle from Assam to any place outside Assam “where slaughter of cattle is not regulated by law”.  This implies that cattle may be transported without any restrictions to places outside Assam where cattle slaughter is regulated by law.  It is unclear whether this seeks to cover any kind of regulation of cattle slaughter, or only regulation that is similar to the regulation under this Bill.  The rationale for restricting inter-state transport may be to pre-empt the possibility of cattle protected under the Bill being taken to other states for slaughter.  If that is the intention, it is not clear why the Bill exempts states with any regulation for cattle slaughter from transport restrictions.  Other states may not have similar restrictions on cattle slaughter as in the Bill.  Note that other states such as Karnataka and Chhattisgarh restrict outgoing cattle transport without making any distinction between states that regulate cattle slaughter and those that do not.

Effective prohibition on sale of beef in Assam 

The Bill prohibits the sale of beef within a five-kilometre radius of a temple (which means an area of about 78.5 square kilometres around a temple).  This threshold may be overly restrictive.  As per the 2011 census, the average town area in Assam is 5.89 square kilometres (sq km) and the average village area is 1.93 sq km.  The three largest towns of Assam by area are: (i) Guwahati (219.1 sq km), (ii) Jorhat (53.5 sq km), and (iii) Dibrugarh (20.8 sq km).  Hence, even if there is only one temple in the middle of a town, no town in Assam – except Guwahati – can have a beef shop within the town area.  Similarly, if a village has even one temple, a beef shop cannot be set up in a large area encompassing several adjoining villages as well.  In this manner, the Bill may end up completely prohibiting sale of beef in the entire state, instead of restricting it to certain places.

Note that certain states such as GujaratRajasthanUttar Pradesh and Haryana completely prohibit the sale or purchase of beef within the state.  However, they also completely prohibit the slaughter of cows, bulls and bullocks.  This is not the case under the Bill, which only places a complete prohibition on slaughter of cows.  Further, in places such as Delhi, municipal regulations prohibit the sale of meat (including beef) within 150 metres from a temple or other religious place.  This minimum distance requirement does not apply at the time of renewal of license for selling meat if the religious place comes into existence after the grant of such license. 

The prohibition on sale of beef in areas predominantly inhabited by communities identified based on religion or food habits (non-beef eating) may also have an unintended consequence.  With the food typically consumed by a community becoming unavailable or available only in select locations, it may lead to the segregation of different communities into demarcated residential areas.  As per the 2011 census, the population of Assam comprises roughly 61% Hindus, 34% Muslims, and 4% Christians.

Onerous requirement for the accused to pay maintenance cost of seized cattle

Cattle rearing is essentially an economic activity.   Under the Bill, cattle may be seized by a police officer on the basis of suspicion that an offence has been or may be committed.  Seized cattle may be handed over to a care institution, and the cost of its maintenance during trial will be recovered from such persons as prescribed by the state government through rules.  Note that there is no time frame for completing a trial under the Bill.  Thus, if the owner or transporter of seized cattle is made liable to pay its maintenance cost, they may be deprived of their source of livelihood for an indefinite period while at the same time incurring a cost.

Cattle preservation laws in other states

The Directive Principles of State Policy under the Constitution call upon the state to prohibit the slaughter of cows, calves, and other milch and draught cattle.  Currently, more than 20 states have laws restricting the slaughter of cattle (cows, bulls, and bullocks) and buffaloes to various degrees.   Table 1 below shows a comparison of such laws in select states of India.  Notably, north-eastern states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland do not have any law regulating cattle slaughter.