Several mutton shops have closed their shutters owing to lack of license after crackdown by local urban bodies across city. Due to lack of supply has led to major hotels and restaurants replacing mutton with chicken non-vegetarian frowning.
On the other hand, the meat stall owners are in fear as they are not sure of getting license in near future as the district administration is also ignorant of the guidelines required for giving license to slaughterhouses and meat stalls.
“We have only closed the shop today after getting notice from Mango Notified Area Committee. Nobody is in a position to tell us anything about license formalities. We are waiting for the things to get clear,” said a meat seller.
According to information those selling chicken can continue to do so. But mutton shop owners have to close down immediately from today itself.
Mango Notified Area Committee (MNAC) special officer, Jagadish Yadav when queried about the license formalities said, “We are working on getting things cleared. At the moment we are issuing notices to meat stalls and slaughterhouses and are yet to receive any guidelines for issuing license. It is the duty of the district civil surgeon to issue a no-objection certificate and only after then we can issue a license subject to fulfilling of norms like maintaining of cleanliness, sanitation and other norms”.
East Singhbhum district civil surgeon, Dr SK Jha said that their responsibility is to ensure that meats sold fulfill food safety norms. However, it is the local urban body who will have to issue the license after checking all details.
Meanwhile famous cuisines, like mutton, mutton biryani have gone missing from the menu of restaurants and hotels in city from today.
“We have decided to do away with some of the dishes as we have no option as the local vendors who supply mutton have intimated us yesterday itself of break in supplies till situation normalises. We have to do with fishes, chicken and eggs in non-veg menu,” said president of Jamshedpur Hoteliers Association (JHA), Anil Khemka and proprietor of Sakchi-based Yashwee International.
JHA officials claimed that on an average a big restaurant and hotel used to consume around 60 kg of mutton. There are around 25 big hotels and 140-odd restaurants in the city.
“We are hopeful to face the situation in the next few days as it is a period of ‘Navratra’ and consumption of non-veg dishes is at a minimum,” noted another official of JHA.
Several hotels like The Sonnet and Fortune Park Center Point (both in Bistupur) have decided to get the mutton dishes off from the menu.