India's livestock population drops by 3.33 per cent

NEW DELHI: India's livestock population including cattle and sheep has dropped by 3.33 per cent to 51.20 crore in 2012 from over the 2007 level.

The number of cattle, goat, bovines, sheep, donkey, camels, pigs and yak have dropped, while the population of poultry and buffalo has risen in the same period.

"The 19th Livestock Census shows an overall decline of 3.33 per cent in the total livestock population as compared to the previous census of 2007," according to the final census released by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh today.

The total livestock population stood at 51.20 crore numbers in 2012, as against 52.96 crore in 2007 it said.

As per the census data, cattle population has declined by 4 per cent to 1.90 crore in 2012 from 1.99 crore in 2007.

Similarly, goat population has dropped by 3.82 per cent to 13.5 crore from 14 crore, number of bovines declined by 1.57 per cent to 29.9 crore from 30.4 crore and sheep population fell by 9 per cent to 6.5 crore from 7.15 crore in the review period.

However the number of buffalo has increased marginaly to 10.87 crore, while poultry population grown by 12.39 per cent to 72.9 crore in 2012.

Some states such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Bihar, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Chhattisgarh have shown an increase in their total livestock population.

Livestock Census in the country started in the year 1919 and since then the exercise has been continuing every five year. The data are being used for policy formulation and has wide utility in the field of planning and research activities.

The data of 19th Livestock Census was compiled at the Central level by setting up data entry centers at selected States considering the volume of work.