‘GOVT IN NO MOOD TO RESOLVE ISSUE’

City meat traders lamented on Thursday that despite more than a month of a court ordering to issue licences and resolve the ‘meat row’ at the earliest, the state government was yet to do the needful.

“The government seems to be in no mood to resolve the issue,” said Mohammed Shahbuddin Quraishi, president of Quraishi Welfare Foundation,the body that represents around 50,000 meat sellers in Lucknow.

Lucknow was most affected after working at its all three slaughter houses came to halt during the government’s crackdown in March on illegal and mechanised slaughterhouses in the state.

Quiraishi said they had also approached chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma but to no avail. “The government departments too are paying no heed. Food Safety and Drug administration —the licensing authority said they will issue licences only if guidelines are fulfilled. But, the catch is that fulfilment of the guidelines (or construction of modern slaughterhouses) are the responsibility of the state government and it hasn’t made any allocation towards the slaughterhouse modernisation,” he pointed out.

He said, a fresh PIL has been filed, asking the state government why the modernisation was being delayed when the money had been already released by the previous government. The hearing is on July 17.