Authorities in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, started closing down unlicensed abattoirs in March, immediately hitting production and sales in meat industry.
In May, the Modi government also banned trading cattle for slaughter, including not just cows, whose killing was already outlawed in most states, but also buffalo, an animal used for meat and leather.
Now the squeeze is spreading to others in the Muslim minority and to lower-caste Hindus who cart cattle, labour in tanneries and make shoes, bags and belts – including for big name brands such as Zara and Clarks.
SOCIAL TENSIONS
Much of India’s meat and leather trade takes place in the informal economy, meaning the impact of the closing of illegal abattoirs and ban on trading for slaughter is hard to measure.
But cattle markets are reporting a big slowdown in trade and tanneries a shortage of hides.
Abdul Faheem Qureshi, a representative of India’s Muslim Qureshi community of butchers, said in Uttar Pradesh some markets trading 1,000 animals last year were now down to as few as 100.
The decline in production means fewer jobs for two of India’s poorest communities, and risks inflaming social tensions at a time when government has vowed to boost employment and accelerate economic growth.
Some large leather manufacturers support the Uttar Pradesh state government’s move, arguing that allowing only licensed abattoirs to operate will clean the industry’s image.
Bigger exporters also say they have enough leather as they source hides widely, including from abroad.
Still, millions work in the meat and leather industries, which are worth more than $16 billion in annual sales.
Muqeem’s monthly income has halved to $300 since last year as leather has become scarce. His dozen casual workers, down from 40, now use mostly synthetic materials.
IMPOSSIBLE TARGET
Like meat, India’s leather industry has expanded rapidly in the last decade, providing relatively well-paid factory work and cash for families stitching informally in their homes.
Agra, in Uttar Pradesh, turns out a million pairs of shoes a day for domestic buyers and European labels such as Inditex-owned Zara and Clarks. An estimated 40 per cent of the population of the northern Indian city, famed as the home of the Taj Mahal, depends on the industry.
India is one of the world’s top five producers of leather, with skins coming from cows that die of natural causes or from the legal slaughter of buffalo.
Government is targeting leather revenues of $27 billion – more than double today’s level – by 2020 as part of a job creation push.
But in May, the government decreed that animal markets could only trade cow and buffalo for agricultural purposes such as ploughing and dairy production – a move many in the industry say contradicts its plans to grow leather sales.
India’s Environment Minister said the government could amend the rule after a court temporarily stayed the order and there was widespread anger in regions where meat and leather are important to the local culture and economy. But industry officials said the shock of the ban, coming on the heels of the crackdown on abattoirs and attacks against cattle workers, meant business would not easily recover.
Companies say the government’s leather target would be impossible to meet unless the restrictions are reversed.
“There is a lot of panic in the industry after the latest order, which has come as the biggest blow,” Puran Dawar, Chairman of Agra-based exporter Dawar Footwear Industries, said as hundreds of workers moulded shoes on the factory floor, referring to the ban on cattle traded for slaughter.
“There are grave concerns about the supply of leather, exports of shoes and overall employment.”
In Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, has made closing unlicensed slaughter houses a priority after his appointment him in March.
About 30 per cent of hides, mostly from buffaloes, that supply tanneries in the state are from unlicensed abattoirs.
Sitting in his one-room shop in Agra’s leather market, Mohammad Hashim, a burly leather dealer in his sixties, said business was down 40 per cent in the last three months.
“Illegal slaughterhouses operated across the state and many big and small leather traders were buying raw material at cheapest rates from unlicensed slaughterhouses to maximise profits,” said UP CM Yogi Adityanath.
WIDER INDUSTRY HIT
In the industrial city of Kanpur, tanneries processing buffalo skins are reporting job losses as the availability of hides dries up.
Nayyar Jamal, General Secretary of Kanpur’s Small Tanners’ Association, reckons as many as 400,000 employees in Kanpur’s leather and related industries are temporarily jobless, including some laid off because of environmental curbs on tannery pollution. Supplies of local hides have dropped by 20 to 30 per cent.
Qureshi, from the butchers’ organisation, estimates that 3.5 million employees in Uttar Pradesh alone have been directly hit.
Tannery owner Mohammad Ikram said he was only able to procure 4,000 hides a month – down from 25,000 – because even truckers transporting legally obtained cow or buffalo hides fear attacks from vigilantes. He has a month’s inventory left, and when that runs out he will have to start shedding staff.
Source: Reuters