Capital’s Butcher:The Bitter Truth and A Call For Redressal.

Despite being the capital city of Nagaland, there has always been an overwhelming sense of anxiety and disappointment on the purchase of butchered meat within the vicinity of Kohima municipality. Unlike other communities in India, these butchered items are the basic essentials and civic needs of the people of Nagaland. From the point of celebration of myriad events to the daily household dinner table, it would be hard to imagine a meal without a non-vegetarian item.But unregulated prices of the pork and the beef meat, and the tampering of the weighing machine, both analogue and digital, by the local butchers are so disappointing and disgraceful.There are instances where two butcher shop lying adjacent to each other charges different prices for the same product. Unlike other municipal district within the state where every part of the meat is assigned different prices, the capital city of Kohima seems to be the only municipality where not only the prices are unregulated but every part of the meat is priced the same. Be it loin, trotters, innards, head or skin, the citizens are made to pay the same price. The beef section is the most disappointing and annoying of all where the usual conversation starts with, ‘kon tu hardy lobo?’ Customers are made to choose from a pool of well-cleaned- off- detached bones without a shred of meat on it weighing at least half the weight of the purchased meat. Aren’t bones supposed to be sold attached to the meat in its original state?‘Being disappointed of buying meat’ is a phrase unheard of anywhere else except in the capital city of Kohima. And yet, the authorities pay no heed to the citizens concern.

While the prices are unregulated, the tampering of the weighing machine by the local butchers is rampant which aggravates the matter. Imagine the disappointment of being slapped on one side of the cheek and before the pain is abated, the other side of the cheek is slapped even harder. Such an act is simply but a robbery taking place on a broad day light under the very nose of the authorities concerned. It is a blatant disregard to a number of penal laws as well as other bye-laws that governs such activities. And yet the authorities give an indifferent shrug to these illegal activities having full knowledge of it. Furthermore, almost 80% of the butcher shops are in a very unhygienic, dilapidated and deplorable condition showing no sign of improvement over the years. Besides, there are instances where stale meat are often jumbled with the fresh meat and sold to the customers.There are many aggrieved but silent citizens who have been a victim to such heinous act of the butchers.One cannot imagine the amount of damage it would do to one’s health on consumption. These butchers have been on the loose for far too long that they don’t seemto be deterred by any punitive measures. Being the capital and the only district chosen under the smart city mission to act as a role model of development for other districts, Kohima Municipality should at least set some hygienic norms and standards so that the remaining districts might inculcate and adhere to it.