With an aim to achieve twin targets of containing stray bull population and increase population of milk-producing female cattle in Haryana, the Manohar lal Khattar Government has formulated “The Haryana Bovine Breeding Act, 2018”.

The draft Act proposes to ban the unregulated sale of semen for cattle in Haryana and anyone found violating the provisions of the Act will be punished with a fine up to one lakh rupees or with rigorous imprisonment up to one year, or both.The Act envisages constitution of the Bovine Breeding Authority under the chairmanship of Director General, Animal Husbandry and Dairying to formulate and implement the breeding policy and regulate the production, storage, sale and use of semen or embryos produced within or outside the state of Haryana or imported from any other country.

The State Government, in its budget 2018-19, had announced to implement a Rs 50 crore scheme to deal with the problem of stray cattle especially foreign and crossbred bovines.

Under this scheme, 90 percent female calf would be produced in the veterinary institutes of the state through artificial insemination using sexed semen. The efforts are on to import the sexed semen technique for this purpose.

In line with government’s proposed scheme, draft “The Haryana Bovine Breeding Act, 2018” has been chalked out.

The draft lays down that no one shall establish and operate a semen station for production and storage of semen doses for artificial insemination or production and transfer of embryos without obtaining a certificate of registration from the Bovine Breeding Authority, Haryana.

The Bovine Breeding Authority will generate a unique identification number for each certified bull and it shall be mandatory for the semen stations to tag this unique identification number securely and permanently to the certified bulls at all times.