BANGALORE: People living near Bangalore’s slaughterhouses suffer from various health problems, and fear vicious dog attacks.
Residents of Tannery Road in Nagawara say the foul smell and filth, from which they have found respite in decades, lead to respiratory ailments.
Express reported on Wednesday how the BBMP has sat on a modern slaughterhouse project for four decades, and misled the High Court into believing work was in progress.
The city’s population was smaller four decades ago, and fewer animals were being slaughtered. But now, with more than a crore people, animals are slaughtered in huge numbers, and living on Tannery Road has become a nightmare, an elderly resident said.
Neither the slaughterhouses nor the BBMP dispose of the carcasses properly. Bones and other waste thrown on the streets attract dogs and vultures.
The dogs become vicious and attack children, residents said.
Syed Hasina, who lives on Tannery Road, said the stench was overpowering. “We can’t get fresh air. Officials have done nothing to shift the slaughterhouses away from here,” she complained to Express.
Farida, another resident, said cattle and sheep waste was thrown indiscriminately on the road. “It is difficult to pass by, especially at night. Dogs attack us. Two years ago, a dog grabbed a little boy and tried to eat him, but someone saved him just in time,” she said.
About 150 big animals (such as oxen and buffaloes) and 800 small ones (poultry and sheep) are slaughtered on Tannery Road every day, a senior BBMP official told Express. No slaughtering takes place on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Sundays are the busiest, with 400 big animals and 3,000 small ones getting slaughtered.On the eve of festivals, 4,000 big animals and 25,000 are killed.
Eight tonnes of animal waste is generated during a festival. Of 22 shops on Tannery Road, 12 serve as slaughterhouses for small animals. In addition to the slaughterhouses on Tannery Road, five in KR Market slaughter small animals. “Shops across the city slaughter animals but they are not accounted for,” he said.
Animal waste is taken with other waste and dumped in a landfill, said the official.