Millions of cows to be tagged with unique 12-digit numbers in India

After its people, India now wants its cows and buffaloes to have a unique numerical identity.

The government has rolled out an extensive project, wherein 100,000 technicians have set out to tag 88 million cattle with a 12-digit unique identification number, the Economic Times reported.

It will work just like the Aadhar system, where citizens are marked with unique numbers and the identification is used in major government transactions.

By tagging cows and buffaloes, the government wants to streamline the tracking of cattle and stay on top of animal vaccination, dairy production and so on.

Once the tag is affixed inside the ears of the cattle, technicians will reportedly use a tablet to update the number in an online database, providing the cattle owner with an "animal health card" to track all activities.

Every detail from breeding to deworming, along with the owner's data, will be captured in the card.

The Indian government claims that close to 1 billion people have an Aadhar card by now.

Now it seems they'll be replicating that for the cattle population as well.