The Koraput Collector in Odisha on Friday, January 23, issued a directive banning the sale of non-vegetarian food across the district on Republic Day, a move that critics say infringes upon the right to choice of citizens on a day that is supposed to celebrate it.
An order issued by District Collector Manoj Satyawan Mahajan instructed tahsildars, block development officers and executive officers to ensure that meat, chicken, fish, eggs and other non-vegetarian food items are not sold on January 26, the 77th Republic Day. The officials were asked to issue formal notifications in their jurisdictions to enforce the ban strictly.
According to local reports, the ban, which applies to sales throughout urban and rural areas of the Koraput district, marks the first time such a restriction has been imposed locally for Republic Day.
It was not immediately clear what led to the directive. However, critics raised concerns about the directive’s compatibility with constitutional rights, pointing to Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution, which prohibit discrimination and protect personal freedoms, including choices related to food.
The Congress MP from Koraput, Saptagiri Ulaka, said in a post on X that the ban is “arbitrary, exclusionary and unconstitutional.” “What was the necessity, Why single out a tribal dominated, culturally diverse district?” he said
According to the 2011 Census, Scheduled Castes (SC) made up about 14.2 per cent of Koraput district’s population and the Scheduled Tribes (ST) around 50.6 percent. Combined, the groups constituted about 64.8 per cent of the district’s population. A survey showed that about 99.5 per cent of tribals reported following a non-vegetarian diet.
Not the first such ban in country
The Koraput ban comes amid similar measures in other parts of the country. In 2025, municipal bodies in Kalyan-Dombivli, Malegaon and Nagpur in Maharashtra ordered meat shops and slaughterhouses to close on Independence Day.
(With inputs from ANI and Hindustan Times)
