'Peacock Judge' Says Cows in Danger, Livestock Census Says Otherwise

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posted on 7 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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While Mahesh Chand Sharma, the 'Peacock judge' who became a national sensation for saying that the national bird procreates asexually, claims that cows are dying in India, the livestock census says otherwise.

"You see, so many cows are dying. Production is as much as consumption. Kheer, mishri, mawa, paneer everything is made here. 1000 quintal milk goes to worship of gods only. We can't stop people from doing so. So, rather than stopping this, we must produce more milk. Hence, we must protect cows. How will we survive without cow milk?," said justice Sharma to CNN-News 18.

However, what does the data say? The Livestock census, conducted by the Animal Husbandry Department, is an authoritative source on cattle numbers. News18 parsed through the latest Livestock Census conducted in 2012 to verify if the honourable judge's fears were backed up by the numbers. Here is what we found.

- The total Bovine population (Cattle, Buffalo, Mithun and Yak) is 299.9 million numbers in 2012, which is a decline of 1.57% over the previous census.

- However, the number of milch animals (in-milk and dry) in cows and buffaloes has increased from 111.09 million to 118.59 million, an increase of 6.75%.

- The number of animals in milk in cows and buffaloes has increased from 77.04 million to 80.52 million, a growth of 4.51%.

- More importantly, the population of Female cows, which are the milk giving animals, has increased by 6.52% over the previous census (2007) and the total number of female cows in 2012 was 122.9 million.

- The Female milk giving Buffalo population has increased by 7.99% over the previous census and the total number of female buffalos stood at 92.5 million in 2012.

- Livestock population has increased substantially in Gujarat (15.36%), Uttar Pradesh (14.01%), Assam (10.77%), Punjab (9.57%) Bihar (8.56%); Sikkim (7.96%), Meghalaya (7.41%), and Chhattisgarh (4.34%).

The Census further shows that:

- The exotic/crossbred milch cattle increased from 14.4 million to 19.42 million, a rise of 34.78%. These are the high yielding milch varieties like Jersey and Holstein.

- Between 2007 and 2012 the percentage of female exotic/crossbred female cattles (milk yielding) increased by almost 29% while males declined by 13%. Female Buffaloes increased by 8% while male buffaloes decreased by 18%.