Old slaughterhouse will be shifted outside Bhopal: CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The proposed site for the new slaughter house in Bhopal on Monday.. (Hindustan Times/HT photo)

Amidst a strong Hindu protest Four decades old Bhopal slaughterhouse is being shifted elsewhere. 

Upendra Bharti | HENB | Bhopal | Sept 6, 2016:: The majority Hindu residents of Bhopal on Monday submitted 38 objections before the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) city Pradeep Sharma, questioning the state government’s proposal to set up a slaughter house, an obnoxious industry, so close to residential areas.

They alleged that building the new slaughterhouse just a few hundred metres from the existing slaughter house was not called “shifting”.

They said if the state cabinet on Tuesday approved the allotment of the seven acre land at former stud farm, they will march towards the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on September 7 to raise their objections.

On August 31, the state government, in an affidavit, informed the NGT about the new site. The affidavit also stated that the proposal for allotment of this land will be placed before the state cabinet at its meeting and the formal allotment will be done on or before September 10.

Ajit Srivastavaa, a retired additional deputy inspector general of police, who lives in the Green Meadows colony near the new proposed site, said, “We objected how the state government could propose setting up a slaughter house near the residential areas when it is an obnoxious industry. Proposing the new slaughter house so near the existing one doesn’t serve any purpose and can hardly be called a shifting of the slaughter house.”

He claimed that nearly 50,000 households lived within one kilometre around the proposed site.

Srivastavaa said the land was for residential purposes under the Bhopal Master Plan. “They should set up it outside the city limits or in the Govindpura area where land has been provided for obnoxious industries.”

Renu Bhargava, president of Green Meadows Welfare Association, said they were already suffering due to cleaning and tanning of animal hides near the existing slaughter house, which creates nauseating smell in the whole area. “In the new slaughter house, they have plans to slaughter nearly 800 animals every day. Imagine the kind of stench it would emanate,” she said.

The residents also staged a candlelight protest demonstration on Sunday evening.

The SDM said, “Based on the objections, I will submit my opinion along with the opinion of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation and the revenue inspector concerned to the collector, who will then submit it before the higher ups.”

Actually, The slaughterhouse in Jinsi locality was operating for more than four decades. The National Green Tribunal last year ruled that it should be shifted elsewhere. The extended deadline ended on August 31, but the state government and the municipal corporation could not finalise a location. On August 31, the NGT slapped a fine of Rs 1 crore on the state and gave it 18 months to build a new slaughterhouse.

Seeing this vehement objections from the local majority people, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday. Chouhan said at a cabinet meeting that the new slaughterhouse won’t be built within city limits because “public sentiment” was against it. The CM, however, did not name the location where the facility would come up.

__Reports based on HT and TNIE.