Maneka, Javadekar lock horns over culling of animals

She accused Environment Minister of encouraging a regime of 'killing animals' across the country

The spat between Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar and Maneka Gandhi, the women and child development minister, over the former’s clearances to states, permitting selective culling of animals that harm agriculture came out in public on Thursday.

“I don’t understand this lust for killing animals. Environment ministry is writing to every state, asking which animal should be killed and that they will give permission for it,” said Gandhi, whose interest in animal rights breaches her ministerial domains.

“In Bengal, they (environment ministry) have permitted the killing of elephants, in Himachal Pradesh, they have ordered killing of monkeys, and, in Goa, they gave permission to kill peacocks,” she stated. When queried about Prakash Javadekar’s role, she said, “Now you tell me, what could be the role? He only has to give permission. This is the first time environment ministry is giving permission to kill animals.” In his defense, Javadekar’s ministry released a statement: “There are many complaints from members of Parliament, people’s representatives, state governments and farmers about their crops getting heavily damaged in certain parts.”

The release noted that law requires Centre to act if states approach it on the issue of human-animal conflict or crop depredation. “Till date, five states have submitted the proposal. There were complaints about wild boar, blue bull and other animals. Accordingly, these proposals have been examined and given permission for scientific management for a limited time for a specific area in the three states of Uttarakhand, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh. Proposals of Maharashtra and Gujarat are still being examined,” reads the release.

In March 2016, the environment ministry had declared monkeys as vermin in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Oddly, it had done so only for the municipal area of Shimla while arguing that the animal was causing havoc in the agricultural areas of the hill state. This was challenged before the National Green Tribunal. This led the ministry to revise its order to declare the monkey as vermin in other parts of Shimla as well. Declaration of an animal as vermin under the Wildlife Protection Act allows the state forest departments to permit citizens in the affected areas to selectively kill the animal.

The spat between the two ministers may have come out in the public now but it has been brewing for a while. Gandhi had earlier written to Javadekar over the reconstitution of the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals, which falls under the latter’s ministry — a query that she had brought to the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as well.

Gandhi, who is also chairperson of the Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre, has shown avid interest in this authority and the Animal Welfare Board of India and their functioning. In the past, Gandhi engaged energetically with the health ministry in order to ban the use of Oxytocin, a prescription drug which is often used illegally in livestock management.

On his part, Javadekar has had to deal with many requests, just like his predecessors, for controlling crop depredation by wild animals — a country-wide menace that causes losses worth Rs 200 crore annually. Recently, the government had to withdraw the crop diversification scheme from Western UP as it had failed in the first year due to crop damage by Nilgai. The Wildlife Protection Act makes it a criminal act to harm or kill most of the crop-depredating animals without permission from the Union government.

The environment ministry noted that it had not given any permission to kill deer, peacock or elephant, contrary to Gandhi’s allegations.