Varanasi Municipal Corporation fined eight meat shops a total of Rs 6,000 on Thursday, 8 October, in a surprise check at Andhrapul. The shops were selling meat in the open, and the officers also found poor waste disposal and dirt around the shops.
The check was carried out on the instructions of Municipal Commissioner Himanshu Nagpal. A joint team of the corporation went to the Andhrapul area on Thursday without notice. Officials went through the shops with police and the enforcement squad, on the direction of the corporation's veterinary and welfare officer, Dr Vijay Amritraj.
Jitendra Anand, the zonal officer of the Varuna Par zone, who led the team, said many shops did not have curtains as required, and that meat was visible from the road outside. He said the area around the shops and the places where their waste is dumped was dirty. The inspection also found that waste from the shops was not being disposed of properly, which caused a foul smell and a risk of infection, according to the officials.
Eight shops were issued challans, and the total fine collected from the shopkeepers was Rs 6,000. The officials warned that a repeat violation could lead to the shop being sealed and the licence cancelled. The corporation has said the checking drive will continue.
Dr Amritraj set out what the corporation expects from a meat shop in the city. The meat must be covered so that it cannot be seen from outside, with curtains or transparent glass. Keeping the shop and its surroundings clean is the shopkeeper's responsibility. Waste from the shop must be disposed of in the proper way. The corporation says surprise inspections of this kind will go on.
The Andhrapul action is separate from the temporary ban on meat and fish sales that the city will see for the Indian Air Force display at Namo Ghat. That ban, which officials have said will cover a radius of 20 to 30 km around the venue from 19 October, is meant to reduce the risk of birds being drawn to the area and hitting aircraft. The details are in our report on the air show preparations at Namo Ghat.
For shopkeepers, the message from the two moves is the same. The corporation is checking compliance closely at a time when the city is preparing for festivals and large crowds, and the next weeks will bring more scrutiny. Navratri begins on Sunday, 11 October, and the corporation has not said whether it will issue any separate order for the nine days.
The corporation has been running other checks across the city in recent days. Its ward-by-ward inspection of street lights and night cleaning, which runs until 19 October, is described in our report on the VMC checks of street lights and night cleaning in 100 wards. The checks come in the weeks before the air show and the festival season.
A fine of Rs 6,000 over eight shops works out to Rs 750 each on average, though the corporation has not said how much each shop was charged. It has not named the shops.
