PPCB direction to further delay slaughter house opening

Ludhiana: Even as the slaughter house on Hambran road after its upgrading is still waiting to start functioning, the new directions issued by the Punjab Pollution Control Board have created a new roadblock in its opening for now.
The PPCB officials have asked the civic body to first arrange for the animal waste that will be produced after slaughtering, as it should not go into the sewerage. However, the civic body officials have demanded some more time to install a rendering plant and showed ignorance about any such plant while saying that PPCB officials did not mention about it earlier.
The slaughter house is ready for operations since January, but earlier due to lockdown and then coronavirus cases did not let the plant become functional. The contractor, who has been appointed to handle the operation and maintenance of the plant, is also seeking some time before signing an agreement with the municipal corporation. The officials claimed that they had been waiting for the file of this case, which was with mayor Balkar Sandhu, and now this new issue had come to the fore.
On August 11, chairman of PPCB, will give hearing to this issue. The civic body officials claimed that since 2015 they had been applying for consent to operate the plant to the PPCB and they had given them go ahead with a temporary NOC. Recently, they got the final NOC, where they had mentioned that the plant should be installed in three months while referring to some law of 2016. The civic body officials have now demanded six months at least for the installation of the rendering plant.
Senior veterinary officer of the MC Dr YP Singh said, “On August 11, we will put up our case in front of the chairman and will seek time for installation of the rendering plant. We will also request the chairman to allow us to start this slaughter house by the time the plant gets installed.”
However, on the other hand one of the PPCB officials requesting anonymity claimed that they had brought everything to the knowledge of the board earlier as they were given conditional consent and now officials were only making excuses just to save their skin, but in the hearing everything would become clear.
The slaughter house project was aimed to bring slaughtering at one place and curb illegal slaughtering and then the same at meat shops. But now when there is a delay in making it operational the illegal slaughtering is flourishing like anything.