Sikkim: Animal Husbandry Dept Orders Closure of Only Butcher House in Gangtok Due to "Unhygienic" Conditions

Gangtok, March 31, 2020:

Sikkim has ordered the closure of the only butcher house in its capital city, Gangtok on grounds of unhygienic conditions.

The Department of Animal Husbandry and Gangtok Municipal Corporation on Tuesday made an uninvited visit to the only butcher house and found out about the unhygienic conditions, in which the people are carrying out their daily work.

Following the revelation amid rising push for maintaining utmost cleanliness especially amid the coronavirus pandemic in the country, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Gangtok Municipal Corporation ordered to closed down the butcher shop for one week.

Bloodstains, uncleaned floors and surfaces and water that seemed stocked for days could be seen in the butcher house.

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According to the Sikkim Animal Husbandry department, the house was not following the food safety and standard was not maintained. The Department has warned the shop owners to clean their shops within a week and not to kill the animals in the shops. Instead, the animall killing should be done in the slaughter house situated at Rangpo, the officials said, otherwise, the meat of the diseased and infected animals enter the food market and is invariably consumed by the public.

Additional Director, Animal Husbandry, Sikkim Madan Shankar, while talking about the visit said, "At this moment of Corona crisis we should maintain the hygiene of everything. Therefore, we decided to visit the butcher house. We found it in a very unhygienic condition, which may infect people. Therefore, we have ordered to shut down the shops for at least one week and during this one week, they have to clean it thoroughly. We will visit and check once again."

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He added, "We have also ordered not to slaughter any animal and even poultry. They need to slaughter at designated slaughterhouse of the state."

Additionally, the Additional Director said owners of butcher houses should ensure hygiene and better practices should be adopted in the meat industry. "If you don’t want to have disease-ridden meat coming to your table or viruses jumping from species and mutating dangerously to infect and kill humans, you should maintain hygiene," he said.

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