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By:

Parashram Patil

14 January 2026 at 8:49:45 pm

The Buffalo Billion

India’s vast dairy economy has turned ageing livestock into a $5-billion export engine and a new instrument of South-South trade. India’s enormous livestock economy is capable of sustaining both large-scale domestic consumption and a substantial international protein trade. According to livestock census data, the country has roughly 74.26 million sheep, 148.88 million goats and 9.06 million pigs, alongside vast standing populations of bovines and poultry. Together, these animal resources...

The Buffalo Billion

India’s vast dairy economy has turned ageing livestock into a $5-billion export engine and a new instrument of South-South trade. India’s enormous livestock economy is capable of sustaining both large-scale domestic consumption and a substantial international protein trade. According to livestock census data, the country has roughly 74.26 million sheep, 148.88 million goats and 9.06 million pigs, alongside vast standing populations of bovines and poultry. Together, these animal resources provide the raw material for domestic consumption as well as export-oriented meat production. The scale of the underlying livestock economy is matched by a sizeable processing infrastructure. Thousands of registered slaughterhouses and modern, export-oriented integrated meat-processing units operate under the regulatory framework of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA). National processing capacity exceeds 1 million tonnes annually, although utilisation remains relatively modest at around 40 to 50 percent. Major surplus-producing regions and export-processing hubs are concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab. India’s buffalo meat, commonly known as carabeef, has established a durable presence in international markets. Its appeal rests on a combination of lean texture, grass-fed characteristics and price competitiveness. Export volumes have recently reached approximately 1.42 million metric tonnes, generating more than $5.09 billion in international revenue. The geography of this trade is revealing. Vietnam functions as the principal logistical entry corridor and re-export gateway into wider East Asian markets. Malaysia provides consistent demand, supported by bilateral commercial ties and structured halal-certified import requirements. Egypt serves as an important intersection between North African and Middle Eastern markets, where both state and private-sector demand for protein remains substantial. Indonesia is another significant destination, although its import volumes fluctuate according to regulatory quotas and domestic food-security policies. In West Asia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain strategically important markets, driven by widespread demand for relatively affordable red meat. The Tariff Wall India’s competitiveness, however, does not translate automatically into market access. Global agricultural geopolitics continues to shape the buffalo-meat trade through preferential trade agreements, sanitary and phytosanitary regulations and persistent differences in tariff treatment. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, competitors such as the United States, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, as well as European producers including the Netherlands, Poland and Ireland, frequently benefit from duty-free or highly preferential tariff arrangements. Indian exporters, by contrast, face structural tariff disadvantages and stringent compliance requirements, limiting their ability to penetrate high-value Western markets more deeply. The competitive picture is similarly complicated in Asia. China’s extensive free-trade arrangements with ASEAN countries give producers such as Thailand preferential, including zero-duty, access for certain meat products. Other regional suppliers can face considerably higher duties, including tariffs of around 20 percent on selected classifications. Such disparities can erode India’s underlying cost advantage. Latin America presents another challenge. Trading blocs such as MERCOSUR provide preferential treatment to producers within the bloc, while countries such as Brazil enjoy lower tariffs in selected emerging markets. For India, operating outside these preferential networks creates another layer of competitive pressure. Two indicators underline the structural competitiveness of India’s meat exports. The Nominal Protection Coefficient (NPC) stands at 0.21, suggesting that domestic meat prices remain substantially below international reference prices. This gives Indian buffalo meat a powerful price advantage in overseas markets. The Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index stands at 1.07, indicating that India possesses a revealed comparative advantage in the international meat trade. The figure points to a sector whose export competitiveness is supported by a relatively low domestic price base and an established presence in global markets. Yet price competitiveness alone cannot guarantee expansion. India must contend with tariff disadvantages across China, ASEAN and European markets, as well as the increasingly important non-tariff barriers created by sanitary and phytosanitary requirements. Meat as Statecraft Much of India’s buffalo-meat economy is effectively a downstream extension of its enormous dairy industry. The monetisation of ageing or economically less productive livestock can provide value to farmers while reducing pressure on scarce feed and fodder resources. What might otherwise represent a declining agricultural asset can therefore be converted into an exportable commodity. That dynamic has also acquired a geopolitical dimension. India has effectively transformed an internal agricultural cycle into a commercial bridge with developing economies across Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa. India’s position in the global protein trade nevertheless remains vulnerable to sanitary gatekeeping, changing trade alignments and preferential regional blocs that favour competitors such as Brazil and Australia. India could strengthen bilateral veterinary cooperation, improve traceability and certification systems, and pursue targeted agreements that reduce non-tariff barriers. (The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.)

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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