The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying has tagged 71,699,100 (70 million) cows, buffaloes, pigs, goats and sheep through its 12-digit Pashu Aadhaar (Aadhaar for animals), Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Sanjeev Kumar Balyan disclosed in a Lok Sabha answer. The Pashu Aadhaar system seeks to tag all these animals using polyurethane tags with 12-digit Animal Unique Identification Number (AUID). The database is called the Information Network for Animal Productivity and Health (INAPH) while its nodal agency is the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). INAPH is thus the animal-equivalent of Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) while NDDB is the equivalent of UIDAI. Balyan’s response suggests that these Pashu Aadhaar cards will double as the animal health card, or Nakul Swasthya Patra, at ₹4/card for the animals. Could that be an indication of what is to come for humans under the National Digital Health Mission? Under the NDHM, every Indian will be given a health ID. Like the animals, could the human Aadhaar double as the health ID, or at least act as a non-negotiable (read: mandatory) requirement for it? States with the highest Pashu Aadhaar cards are: Odisha (8.4 million), Andhra Pradesh (8,1 million) , Madhya Pradesh (8 million), Uttar Pradesh (6.9 million), Gujarat (6.8 million) and Telangana (6.2 million). The question was asked by BJP MPs Sukanta Majumdar (Balurghat, West Bengal), Vinod Kumar Sonkar (Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh), Bhola Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo (Bolangir, Odisha), Raja Amareshwara Naik (Raichur, Karnataka), and Jayanta Kumar…
