GMC’s hygienic meat plan goes haywire

GMC’s hygienic meat plan goes haywire

GUWAHATI, June 16: The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC)’s much-hyped plan of selling hygienic meat from the slaughterhouses in Guwahati has come a cropper within four months of its launch. Now the meat being minced hygienically by the slaughterhouse under Assam Livestock and Poultry Corporation (ALPCo) located at Khanapara in the city has no takers, barring the Army and people from Meghalaya.

In order to ensure supply of hygienic meat in the city, the GMC had signed an agreement with the Meat Sellers’ Association and a private company which runs the hygienic slaughterhouse under ALPCo. The hygienic slaughterhouse was launched on February 1 this year, but now no one goes to the slaughterhouse to buy meat as they are not happy with what is going on.

Talking to this reporter, Meat Sellers’ Association president Muslim Ali has said that the meat being supplied by the hygienic slaughterhouse is to be kept in refrigerators for around eight hours. “It hampers our business because customers are not ready to buy stale meat. We’ve submitted a proposal to the hygienic slaughterhouse to provide us at least ten kg meat for sale experimentally. If customers are satisfied, we will certainly accept the GMC’s order. However, things are not going on according to our proposal. Moreover, the transportation cost is huge. We demand that the hygienic slaughterhouse supplies meat to every shop. This apart, the quality of meat the slaughterhouse supplies to us is not good. Our customers are averse to buying such meat. This has led us to stop going there and start to mince meat on our own. We want GMC to provide us mini-slaughterhouses area wise instead of the one being run by a private company. We can provide quality meat only if we’ve our own slaughterhouses.” A GMC official, while denying the allegations, said: “What they allege is not true. We’re going to act tough against slaughterhouses which refuse to buy meat from the hygienic slaughterhouse.” The slaughterhouse at Khanapara in Guwahati being run by a private company under ALPCo has a capacity to slaughter 300 pigs, 16,000 poultry and 4,500 goats a day. There are 152 meat sellers registered under the GMC. Around 2,200 goats weighing 5-7 kg are slaughtered in Guwahati to meet consumers’ demand every day. Even as state slaughterhouses refuse to buy meat from the hygienic slaughterhouse at Khanapara, it sells meat to the Army and people of neighbouring Meghalaya.

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