The population of cows in the country has risen by 18% in the past seven years, while that of donkeys has dipped by 61%, according to the latest census of livestock.
The provisional data of the 20th Livestock Census released by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying on Wednesday showed that the livestock population increased by 4.6%, from 512.06 million in 2012.
Among the States, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of livestock of 67.8 million, followed by Rajasthan (56.8 million), Madhya Pradesh (40.6 million) and West Bengal (37.4 million).
The total cattle population in the country is 192.49 million in 2019, marginally up from 190.90 million in 2012, when the last such Census was carried out.
In Uttar Pradesh, the number of cattle is down from 19.6 million in 2012 to 18.8 million. The buffalo population in the state has gone up by 7.81%. On the other hand, the number has gone up in West Bengal.
While cattle accounted for 35.94% of total livestock in the country, goats accounted for 27.80%, buffaloes 20.45%, sheep 13.87% and pigs 1.69%.
The total number of milch animals (in-milk and dry) in cows and buffaloes is 125.34 million, an increase of 6% over the previous census.
The country now has a total of 109.85 million buffaloes as compared to 108.70 million in the 2012 census. The goat population, on the other hand, went up to 148.88 million showing an increase of 10.1% over the previous census. The total number of sheep in the country is 74.26 million in 2019, an increase of 14.1% over the previous enumeration.
Besides, there was a spectacular 16.8% increase in the poultry population in the country to 851.81 million.
Interestingly, there is a 6% decline in the total number of indigenous cattle over the previous census. On the contrary, the population of total exotic/crossbred cattle has increased by 26.9% in 2019 as compared to previous census.