As if the government's push towards making Aadhaar mandatory for everything under the sun wasn't enough, a new move by the Centre to issue biometric-based unique identification number to each cow in country has raised a few eyebrows.
However, this time, the government could be following what most developed countries in the West have already done. Though it may sound weird, but cows in UK and other European countries are issued cattle passports.
The Aadhaar-like unique identification of livestock could ensure traceability of animals from birth to death. In Europe, cattle tagging helps in tracing of animals for veterinary purposes, which is of crucial importance for the control of infectious diseases.
Besides providing proper care to the cattle, the identification of bovine animals helps in ensuring source of beef for public health reasons.
In Europe, however, these measures were taken in response to the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis also nicknamed as the 'mad cow disease'.
Mad cow disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that slowly destroys the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) in cattle. The disease can be transmitted to humans if they eat the brain or spinal cord of cattle.

According to a report in The Independent, around 4.4 million cows were killed in UK and more than 156 people died in the 1990s as a result of contracting the variant of BSE.
Following the scare, the UK government had banned beef-on-the-bone and restaurants took the T-bone steak and ribs off the menu. UK government currently issues unique passports to cattle, bison and buffaloes.The Australian government also runs a similar program. National Livestock Identification System in Australia provides permanent identification to cows to track their movements for disease control and food safety. In Canada, there is permanent radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for cattle.
On Monday, the Narendra Modi-led BJP government proposed a unique identification number for cows to the Supreme Court. The Aadhaar-like identification number has been suggested by an expert panel to track cattle.
The government said that the move is to protect cows from being smuggled. The UID number should be mandatory and should have details like "age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body, color, horn type, tail switch, special marks details of the animal", the committee suggested.
While the move may help track and provide care to abandoned cattle, opposition and critics have questioned the proposal as it comes amid recent attacks by cow vigilante mobs in various states.
Besides, carrying out such a large enrollment exercise for cattle will be a mammoth task, considering the number of abandoned cows who survive on roadside trash.

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