Open slaughter of chicken to stop

KOLKATA: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) health department will crack down on the slaughter of chicken on pavements across the city. It will also send notices to owners of mutton shops who flout hygiene guidelines. Complaints have poured into theKMC headquarters about pavements left bloodied by the open slaughter of poultry.Exactly a week ago, TOI had carried a report on how many parents have complainedthat their children were traumatised by the gory sight. On Thursday,Atin Ghosh, MMiC health, conceded that the menace has reached frighteningproportions in some areas. A special drive has been planned against illegalslaughter of chicken, he said. Health department inspectors will seize the meatsold on pavements. "First, we will ask these traders to abide by KMC guidelinesand sell chicken within municipal markets. A week after the notice, we will sendinspection teams across the city," Ghosh said. Apart from the gorysight of open slaughter, KMC health officials are also getting complaints of badhygiene practices by a large number of licenced meat sellers. In 2005, the KMChealth department had issued cleanliness rules and ordered meat shop owners toupgrade their establishments by taking measures to preserve meat. Theguidelines, sent to around 1,000 licensed meat sellers in the city, asked themto reconstruct their shop walls using glazed marble tiles and install a swingdoor at the place of slaughter. They were required to cover the front of theirshops with tinted glass and arrange a proper drainage system to ensure customersweren't exposed to the gory sight of slaughter and spilling of blood.The KMC health department also announced that meat shop owners whocomplied with the guidelines would be gifted a refrigerator worth Rs 14,000. KMCreceived a special fund of Rs 100,000 from the state food processing departmentfor the purpose. More funds were promised once the utilization certificate wassubmitted. The civic health department declared 57 meat shops asmodel ones. They were mostly in New Market, Shyambazar, Bidhan Sarani, CollegeStreet, Hazra Road and Kidderpore. The shop owners were presented withrefrigerators as promised, and the 40 best performers got deep fridges of 50kilo capacity.