Hundreds of meat sellers on Friday staged a demonstration outside Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) headquarters to register their protest against the civic body’s decision of imposing a complete ban on sale of meat during 8-day-long festivity of ‘Paryushan Parv’ starting from August 22 and ‘Ganesh Chaturthi’ on August 29.
The protesters shouted slogans against the civic body officials while further demanding to reduce the ban up to two days only.
About 200 meat sellers led by Raipur (North) MlA, Shrichand Sundarani met RMC Commissioner, Avneesh Kumar Sharan and urged him to consider their demand of imposing the ban only at first and last days of ‘Paryushan Parv’. The protestors told the Commissioner of facing the problem of livelihood, if their shops would consistently remain closed for eight days.
Notably, following the directives ssued by State Urban Administration Department, the RMC on a day earlier issued an order to keep closed all the slaughter houses and meat shops on August 22 to August 29.RMC Health Officer, Dr Shiv Sharma has also directed all the Zone health officers and supervisors to ensure that all the meat shops of their respective areas would remain closed during the said time period.
He also asked the officials concerned of taking stern action against those found violating the order while appropriate actions will also be taken against the Health Officer and supervisors concerned on failing to enforce the order.After hearing the shopkeepers, the officials assured them of discussing the issue with senior officials concerned and soon taking appropriate decision in this regard.