Slaughterhouse near Sanjay Basti lacks modern equipment

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 17

A slaughterhouse near Sanjay Basti has failed to follow the standards set by the government due to lack of infrastructure and modern facilities.

The slaughterhouse is being run without modern equipment or machine, which are used for the disposal of unwanted material like polluted water, animal remains or other things.

The process of butchering is done in the most unscientific manner amidst chaos and an unbearable stink. If a non-vegetarian person visits the slaughterhouse before 8 am, the person will surely not be able to consume meat for a few months in view of its sorry state of affairs.

Butchers hardly bother about the medical examination of the animal to be butchered or adopt the set guidelines issued in this regard.

In 2014, the Union Government had come up with a scheme, under which it was to construct an ultra modern slaughterhouse in the city.

Even the Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) had prepared a detailed project report from a Pune-based consultant company, Mitcon, but later the Union Ministry of Food Processing dropped the project.

This project was to be set up on the Badal road with grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, which was likely to release Rs 5.93 crore for the project, but the MP from Bathinda, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who herself holds the portfolio of the Food Processing Minister in the Union Cabinet, has failed to issue grants for the project after approving it for the city. Later, the project was dropped.

The Municipal Corporation Mohali was allotted funds for the scheme as it had submitted the proposal in time and those corporations that got late in submitting the proposal with DPR were not allotted the funds.

Illegal meat shops have been mushrooming right under the nose of the MC in the city, but no action is being taken against them.

Interestingly, even the MC officials admit that large numbers of meat sellers have not taken a licence to run their shops. A majority of them are running meat shops in residential areas, causing a nuisance to the residents.

Chief Sanitary Inspector Sandeep Kataria said, “We have registered around 50 per cent meat shops and more will be registered in the coming days. No illegal slaughter house will be allowed to work in the city. We are working with Health Department to crack the whip on meat sellers.”