LUCKNOW: They don't have the licence to operate but close to 600 meat shops in the city have started functioning illegally.
According to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the licensing authority, no shop is even eligible for a licence; a major reason being that there is no slaughterhouse or source of raw meat in the city.
"Butchering of animals inside shops is prohibited so meat shop owners have to show their source. Since there is no slaughterhouse, they have no source to show. As a result, they are not eligible to even apply," said DR Mishra, designated officer of FSSAI. President of butchers' association Shafeen Qureshi said the online system was complicated and queries are not handled properly at the FSSAI office. "We have visited the FSSAI office half-a-dozen times. Sometimes, the officials say they don't have the format and sometimes they say they don't have the orders to accept applications. So we have stopped making the effort," he said.
The high court, on May 12, directed the government to commission new licences and renew old ones. It also observed it was the responsibility of the municipal corporation to construct a modern slaughterhouse.
However, LMC is neither streamlining the procedure to construct the proposed slaughterhouse nor is it planning a crackdown on meat shops functioning without licences. "A month ago, we carried out drives to shut down illegal meat shops. It is the duty of LMC to check shops operating without licences," said acting mayor Suresh Chandra Awasthi.
As to why there was no progress in the construction of a modern slaughterhouse, he said, "The pollution department has not provided an NOC." UP Pollution Control Board officials said the NOC had been rejected because of incomplete information. "LMC's application was rejected because it did not have requisite information. We even sent them a query asking for details but got no revert," said Kuldeep Mishra, regional head of the pollution control board.
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