The corporation has decided to ban illegal culling from October 18 in an effort to push meat sellers into using the state’s first modern slaughterhouse whose outsourced operator is crying out for business.

Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) town commissioner Manoj Kumar published a public order to this effect in some vernacular dailies on Friday stating that all meat shops of Ranchi will have to get themselves empanelled with the abattoir latest by October 17 for meat requirements or face fines and closure.

The order effectively means that all meat shops operating in any part of the city will have to sell meat culled and procured from the RMC-owned abattoir at Kanke on the outskirts of the city directly or through its five designated shops.

RMC deputy municipal commissioner Sanjay Kumar said the state was trying to encourage meat sellers to operate in hygienic conditions. The only way to do that was to stop the practice of slaughtering chicken and goats on the roadside by asking butchers to use the state-of-the-art abattoir that has been built at a cost of Rs 15 crore.

“Otherwise, the entire purpose of building the slaughter house by spending public funds will get defeated,” he said.

Sanjay Kumar said RMC had sent letters to all meat shop owners, licensed and unlicensed, within RMC limits to inform them that from October 18, no one would be spared.

“Today (Friday), we have called meat shop owners for an interaction. We will hear about their problems, but tell them that from October 18, RMC will start taking punitive action as per law,” he told The Telegraph.

The Kanke slaughter house, with a capacity to cull 2,000 goats per day, started operations from August 7. But not many meat sellers used its services, prompting Noida-based Micro Transmission System (MTS), which bagged the contract for running the abattoir, to threaten pullout because of operational losses.

“The same agency is running it but it may have sub-let operations to another agency. If the abattoir is not made use of, it will be a loss for RMC too as we have invested crores of rupees to set it up,” he said.

According to sources in RMC, there are around 400 meat shops in its jurisdiction. More than 90 per cent of these are culling meat illegally without following the prescribed norms.

“RMC meat shops, which are extension centres of the slaughter house, have been set up at Kanke, Morabadi, Booty More, Madhukam and Kantatoli for retail sales. A meat shop owner can either buy his consignment from these designated retail shops or get goats culled at the abattoir for a fee,” said an officer, adding that the abattoir was fully mechanised which made the operations hygienic.

As for penalties, the RMC officer said they would slap a fine of Rs 2,000 under Jharkhand Municipal Act-2011 on any shop resorting to illegal culling of meat. “We will also continue to seize and destroy meat culled illegally,” he warned.