Russell Market shop owners complaint about the dumping of animal waste by beef market people.
Bengaluru: Shop owners in the Beef Market in Shivajinagar dump animal waste in Russell Market’s backyard, causing a stinky situation. Complaints to the BBMP have led to no resolution.
“The Beef Market shop owners slaughter animals in their houses nearby and dump the waste in Russell Market’s backyard at night…. Everyone is aware of it, but not willing to comment,” P. Manohar, who has run a fish shop in the market for the past 35 years, informed The Observer.
The designated slaughterhouse is located on Tannery Road. Only half of the bovines are slaughtered there.
Kumar, who has bought meat from Russell Market for the past 40 years, said the stink is getting worse. “The market is maintained poorly. Garbage is always accumulated on the road, so people refuse to pass through it because of the stink.”
When The Observer approached the owner of the oldest beef shop in the market, he refused to comment.
Another beef shop owner, N Niyamath, who inherited his father’s business, said: “We don’t have much waste in the shop. We leave the waste on the roadside and a BBMP vehicle clears it every day.”
A shopkeeper from the Beef Market who did not want to be named shared: “We don’t slaughter cows here. The slaughtering is done on Tannery Road. So we don’t have any animal waste left to be cleared.”
But the civic body says the beef shop owners are at fault. “The beef market shop owners look for shortcuts. Slaughterhouses are allotted to them, but they don’t use them. We have requested the senior health inspector and the medical officer to check arrangements for waste dumping in the market,” M. Lokesh BBMP executive engineer for East Zone, said.
Marshals will be appointed from September 1 to look for illegal dumping of garbage. The licences of shop owners dumping waste can be cancelled, he added.
Russell Market is one of the oldest markets in Bengaluru. It was built in 1927 by the British and inaugurated in 1933 by Ismail Sait, a banker and businessman who served as a member of the Madras Legislative Council. The market was devastated in a fire on February 26, 2012. The loss was estimated at Rs 1.2 crore.
