THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city corporation has retendered the operation and maintenance contract for the revamped modern slaughterhouse at Kunnukuzhy, following an unsuccessful bidding.
The civic body had planned to start the abattoir’s trial run on World Environment Day. However, the move failed owing to cold response to the tender floated for the operation, maintenance and overall management of the newly established modern abattoir for large and small animals.
The reopening of the slaughterhouse after more than a decade of closure is in limbo as the corporation struggles to find a suitable agency. The project, aimed at ensuring hygienically slaughtered meat supply within the city, was built with modern mechanised systems and has a capacity to slaughter 50 to 75 small and large animals.
The new slaughterhouse is designed in a way to address environmental, public health, and animal welfare standards, and includes an effluent treatment plant (ETP), biogas units, chilling rooms, odour control systems and a rendering plant to handle waste. The agency getting the bid will be responsible to manage the abattoir for a period of 10 years on rent basis.
An corporation official said that this is a first-of-its-kind abattoir in the state and hence it was difficult to find a bidder. It is learned that only a single agency participated in the initial bid.
Meanwhile, the civic body is planning to put an end to illegal slaughter in the corporation area as soon as the new slaughterhouse is opened. The plan is to give registration to all meat butchers in the corporation for bringing animals to the slaughterhouse for custom slaughter.