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Dhaka to get 5 modern slaughterhouses

Helemul Alam
Concerns for public health, environment and animal welfare at Dhaka's five age-old slaughterhouses will soon be addressed, as both city corporations have embarked on a project to modernise the facilities.
Meat trader Abu Alam said he had been slaughtering animals right in front of his butcher shop in Kaptan Bazar, since the nearby slaughterhouse, maintained by Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), lacks any amenities to ensure hygiene.
He also said he is well aware of the negative impact of slaughtering animals out in the open, and many meat traders like him would be happy once they are provided modern facilities at the slaughterhouse in Kaptan Bazar.
In order to meet the concerns, DSCC and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) will rebuild the five slaughterhouses — two at Kaptan Bazar and Hazaribagh under DSCC and three at Gabtoli, Mohammadpur Krishi Market and Mohakhali under DNCC.
Tanveer Ahmad, executive engineer at DSCC Planning and Development department, said DSCC, under its Infrastructure Development Project, has started the construction work of two facilities in January at
a cost ofTk 60 crore.
Both the slaughterhouses will be equipped with semi-mechanical equipment and their construction is estimated to be completed by June next year, he also said.
The new design of the facilities will not only provide sanitary protection but will increase daily slaughtering capacity by nearly four times that of a conventional slaughterhouse. As opposed to a slaughtering capacity of200 to 300 cattle per day at a conventional one, the capacity at Hazaribagh's mechanised slaughterhouse will reach upto 1,200 cattle each day, Tanveer said.
The capacity at Kaptan Bazar facility will increase to around 600 cattle a day and the figure for goats at each facility will be around two times that of cattle, he added.
As a means to protect public health, each slaughterhouse will have in-house veterinary professionals who will screen each animal before slaughtering.
Once a sick animal is identified, it will be sent to a quarantine zone, built at a safe location away from the shed for healthy animals waiting in queue, Tanveer added.
Explaining the slaughtering process, he said an animal is first taken into an enclosed chamber, which is then turned upside down. A traditional method is then followed to slaughter it.
The blood, collected in a tank through a drainage system, is later used for commercial purposes.
The carcass is then hung onto an overhead conveyor belt. After deskinning the carcass, chainsaws are used to split it into sizeable portions. The meat trader then takes the portions to the butcher shop and processes the meat according to customer's requirement, Tanveer said.
Regarding the pro-environment features, he said the risk of biohazard will be reduced by ensuring that the animal waste is not released in the environment without getting treated in an on-site effluent treatment plant (ETP).
Besides, each slaughterhouse will also have a biogas plant that will use animal faeces collected there.
The management of the new slaughterhouses might be placed under private firms as "there are many local companies that now work in the field," the DSCC executive engineer also said.
Out of the three new slaughterhouses in DNCC area, the one near Mohakhali bus terminal was already opened in the first week of December after renovation.
Renovation work of the slaughterhouse near Mohammadpur Krishi Market will start shortly while the one at Gabtoli will be rebuilt.
Both of these are now in designing phase, said Wasik Edaaf, an architect at Vitti Sthapati Brindo Ltd, the firm tasked with designing the slaughterhouses for DNCC.
Humane treatment of animals was not possible at conventional slaughterhouses where animals were slaughtered in front of other animals in queue, he said, adding that the modern slaughterhouses will have separate enclosures from where the slaughtering process will not be visible.
At a conventional slaughterhouse, even an expert butcher would take around an hour to complete the entire process of slaughtering, deskinning and sizing up of a cow, while it will be around 20 to 30 minutes at the modern facility, Wasik said.