Indian Budget: Duty on pet foods cut; Project Tiger gets boost

March 1, 2007

Duty on pet foods cut; Project Tiger gets boost

NEW DELHI, Feb 28: Love of animals showed its streak in the Budget

with Finance Minister P Chidambaram today announcing a cut in excise

duty on pet foods by 10 per cent.

" I have a good news cat and dog lovers. I propose to reduce the duty

on pet foods from 30 to 20 per cent, " Chidambaram declared during his

Budget speech in Lok Sabha.

Total outlay for wildlife preservation jumped to Rs 188.64 crore this

year from Rs 151.81 crore last fiscal, marking an increase by 17.7 per

cent.

Facing threats to its survival, the tiger may have a reason to growl

as the total outlay for Project Tiger nearly doubled this year to Rs

61.50 crore from Rs 31.50 crore last year.

Pachyderms got little more flab with a marginal increase of Rs 1.09

crore from last fiscal's Rs 13.09 crore under Project Elephant.

But, the bad news is that the government decreased the allocation for

the welfare of animals in terms of shelters, birth control and

ambulance service from Rs 21.88 crore last year to Rs 21.80 crore this

year.

The allocation for development of national parks and sanctuaries

remained unchanged at Rs one crore this time.

Bad news again for animals outside the protected areas with no word

for their safety for the second consecutive fiscal. It was in 2005

they got a measly sum of Rs 10 lakh.

Those in the zoos too have no reason to cheer as their allocation

dropped from Rs 17.63 crore to Rs 14.00 crore this year.

Harried forest rangers may hope to put on better jungle shoes with

nearly doubling of allocation from Rs 2.60 crore this fiscal to Rs

4.58 crore this year for strengthening wildlife division and

constituencies for special tasks.

Tribals and rural folk living in forests will continue to sustain on

an unchanged allocation of Rs 3.00 crore for bio-diversity

conservation and rural livelihood improvement.

However, the allocation dropped to Rs 12.58 crore from Rs 13.56 crore

this year for Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun. PTI

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