India set to RFID cows

By agencies   |   Wednesday, 17 August 2005, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Local authorities in New Delhi have started inserting RFID tags into stray cattle wandering on the city streets in an attempt to solve problems of blocked streets. Letting cows on the streets after milking them is a common phenomenon in India and cows usually wander eating from the garbage bins and leftovers. When caught, the owners of these cattle will have to pay about $233 to get their wandering animals back. About a few days ago, the authorities started to offer about $46 to anyone who rounds up any wandering animal and brings it to them. There are approximately 35,000 cows and buffaloes wandering on the streets of New Delhi and road-users here are used to them, skirting around them, whether they are upright or plonked on the center of the street, looking ahead benignly and oblivious to the noise and crowds of the streets. Of course, they draw bewildered looks from overseas visitors, but in India, the cow is considered holy and so, is usually left to its own devices. No one has made a market survey on the potential for tagging stray cattle in India with RFID devices, but if New Delhi itself has 35,000, there could easily be more than ten times that number in the various Indian cities and the potential for RFID tags will be huge.

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