Unsafe, unhygienic meat is what you have been eating so far
- Animals selected for the butcher’s knife are cut illegally in the road side meat stalls.
- Health Officers in BBMP fear for their lives if they get cracking on their illegal meat shops.
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Remember that chicken curry or that finger-licking mutton roast you just had for dinner or lunch? Are you really sure of where it have come from and is the meat actually safe for consumption?
Chances are your roadside meat shop has been cheating you. No, not in terms of price but in terms of the quality of the product being sold to you in the name of meat. According to the Animal Husbandry department, there are only three slaughter houses in the city from where the small and large animals can be slaughtered and sold at licensed mutton, beef and pork stalls.
The BBMP has issued licences to close to 2,500 stalls spread across the city selling the meat that includes, mutton, beef, pork, fish and poultry. Now, the problem is that these stalls that sell the meat of small and large animals have no certification to prove the origin or the quality of the carcass that is being sold after slaughtering. The meat is supposed to bear a stamp from the slaughterhouse. Make sure you see that before buying!
Parvez Ahmed Piran, Former Additional Director of Animal Husbandry Department, explains how the process has to be. "The veterinarian should examine the animals before and after it is slaughtered and its carcass has to tested before allowing the merchants to take it for sale. Many of the stalls do not bother to get the animal to get them slaughtered at the designated place given by BBMP. They just do it at their stalls and homes and sell the meat. This is nothing but compromising with public health," he said.
Rules state that such shops should be prevented from selling such meat and its trade licence has to be cancelled with immediate effect. However, the officials concerned in the BBMP fear to check such stalls. And the fear is losing their life. The officials don’t want to end up at the end of some angry butcher’s knife.
"We have 7 veterinarians to check the animal’s health before it is slaughtered and also certify the same as fit after it is cut. A veterinarian has to check 96 animals under his quota. He or she can do that only at the BBMP slaughterhouse, but many of the animals are being cut at stalls on road side and at homes of mutton, pork and beef merchants. If we go to check their stalls, we may get stabbed as they have knife," said Anand, BBMO Joint Director, BBMP, Animal Husbandry Department .
The officer also said that he has requested the BBMP administration wing to provide an inspection vehicle so that he could have back up when he takes his team of officials to crackdown on such shops. According to health experts consuming unhealthy and contaminated meat will give rise to serious stomach infection and will affect elderly and small children the most as their immune system is weak. The environment in which such meat is being cut is also dubious because only slaughterhouses have proper disposable channels for the waste material but when they are cut in such roadside stalls it raises questions of cleanliness and hygiene.
