Introduction of a new mechanism (Cone System) for chicken slaughter may help the government ensure provision of wholesome meat to the public at large.

The system has been introduced recently (around 15 days back) in Lahore aiming at regulating thousands of chicken meat sale centres and shops under a plan to ensure hygienic slaughter, ending the decades’ old traditional methods.

At present a huge number of sellers slaughter chicken manually, throw it in a plastic or iron drum, remove skins, wings and finally cut meat by ignoring the basic hygiene standards. The system was introduced keeping in view increasing complaints related to sale of dead chicken meat in city’s major markets, including the Tollinton market.

It was launched by the City District Government’s food wing after its livestock department teams monitored supply of dead chicken from poultry farms to Tollinton Market and other places and foiled the shop owners’ bid to sell the dead by mixing it with the alive chicken meat.

“Actually the core objective behind the initiative was to completely end the ‘Dabba slaughter system’ (drum system) that had enabled the sellers to slaughter dead chicken and throw them in drum before slaughtering alive chicken. Since the complaints concerning sale of dead animals’ meat were rising, we started thinking how to get rid of these,” says CDGL District Officer (livestock) Chaudhry Ayub.

He said besides the dead chicken meat, the way of slaughtering the alive chicken was also a very dirty one, inviting hygienic issues.

He said: “After browsing various websites, we got this system, which is adopted in various countries for production of Halal meat.”

Ayub said under the new system, a seller would have no drums. He would slaughter the chicken manually and hang it into the stainless steel cone in upside down position one by one. After complete drainage of the blood, the seller while wearing gloves would keep the slaughtered bird on a dedicated stainless steel or marble piece for removing its wings, skin and cutting meat. And he would clean the cone off and on to maintain cleanliness by avoiding swarm of flies, ants etc.

He said the department inspectors had so far issued notices to as many as 1,400 chicken sale centre owners, out of which around 100, including many from Tollinton market, have got the system installed. He said the CDGL had also prepared and approved bylaws especially for the provision of wholesome chicken meat to the people. Under the bylaws, the CDGL teams would enforce section 146-D of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance-2001 under which the city governments could seal or demolish such premises besides imposition of fine. In certain circumstances, this section allows the officials to get a case registered against the owners of such premises/centres. “But we have not started enforcing this section since the shopkeepers require some time to get themselves familiar with the new set-up. That is why we are giving them a sufficient time to have the system,” Mr Ayub said.

Last week, the city district labour department appointed special monitoring officers to check their teams constituted for raiding brick kilns to identify child labour under the law. The main objective was to check the methodology of raids, ensuring transparency and getting rid of complaints (if any) from kiln owners and their staff.

“The officers would have schedule of the teams’ visits in advance and they are authorised to monitor the kilns inspected already,” an official told Dawn.

He said the officers would also be authorised to accompany the education officers deputed to check the one-room schools set up at various kilns in collaboration with private and government organisations. — (khalidpak284@yahoo.com).

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2016