Civic Officials crack whip on illegal food, meat units

Over a year after raids on illegal meat-processing units in the Pahadi Shareef area, the Jalpally municipal authorities rolled up their sleeves again to take on illegal food processing and storage units operating without proper permissions or safety measures.

A day after closing four illegal units in the area, Jalpally Municipal Commissioner G P Kumar, along with his team, raided several meat-processing and storage units on Wednesday at Shahjahan Colony and seized 10 after finding they were operating without permissions. The team reached the area along with the police and inspected the industries going round the room.

"We carried out raids on illegal meat processing and storage units at Shahjahan Colony in Jalpally. During inspection it was found that the units are being run illegally. They usually export beef or cow meat to China, Bangladesh and the UAE.

All the units are found operating without permissions, export certificate, Central Excise certificate from departments like Industries, Pollution Control Board, Veterinary and Fire Services.

We even alerted higher authorities about the threatening calls we are receiving against such raids. A total of 12 companies have been seized; all managers have been handed over to the Balapur police," informed Kumar.

"Most factories are operating illegally in Jalpally, some are even contributing to pollution and are operating without a trade licence. Besides, many are being run without any safety measures.

We have brought the issue to the notice of the Pollution Control Board authorities also. We will continue our campaign to identify such units and take appropriate action against them," he said.

Only last year, the authorities carried out similar raids on illegal animal visceral organ-processing units in January. Several units in Shahjahan Colony were inspected and sealed for flouting rules for running food-processing industries.