Kochi’s abattoir of shame

Officials of the Department of Food Safety and Standards had refused to grant a licence to the slaughterhouse at Kaloor.

It has no basic hygiene, cleanliness or waste management, according to K.V. Shibu, Assistant Commissioner of Food Safety, Ernakulam. No scientific slaughter procedure is followed there, he added.

The city Corporation’s slaughterhouse at Kaloor, from where much of Kochi gets its meat, may be a potential health hazard.

A stop memo issued by the Kerala State Pollution Control Board and even a terse High Court direction have not been able to force the Corporation to ensure that abattoir has at least some basic food safety standards in place.

Officials of the Department of Food Safety and Standards, the licensing authority, had refused to grant the slaughterhouse a licence because of its horrendous condition. It still has no basic hygiene, cleanliness or waste management, according to K.V. Shibu, Assistant Commissioner of Food Safety, Ernakulam. No scientific slaughter procedure is followed there, he added.

“Yet, the slaughterhouse continues to function only because the Corporation argues that the public will be denied their daily meat if it is closed,” said advocate Basil Attipat who had moved the petition by the Thanneerthada Samrakshana Samithy, Kaloor.

The Samithy had petitioned for closing it down and re-locating it to the city outskirts. But, the Corporation has not been able to find a suitable place to relocate the slaughterhouse for the last two decades.

According to Mr. Attipat, over 150 heads of cattle are being slaughtered on an average in the city per day, but the records at the slaughterhouse usually log a tally of less than 50.

This means that the rest of the meat distributed in the city is of animals slaughtered elsewhere, usually in crude and unscientific ways, he said.

The closure of the slaughterhouse in Kaloor will therefore entail stoppage of the meat supplied to various outlets from other illegal sources.

The blood and other solid bio-waste from the slaughterhouse go into the Perandoor Canal. “The Corporation, which closes its eyes to such blatant pollution, instead keeps spending its funds to clean up the canal,” said Mr. Attipat.

PCB officer Vijaya Devi said the slaughterhouse only has a partly working bio-gas unit. No rectifications have been attempted on it.

The Corporation’s health standing committee chairman T.K. Ashraf told The Hindu that the functioning of the slaughterhouse was not up to the mark. But the issues would be rectified soon, he said.