PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday approved the establishment of a Rs200 million modern slaughterhouse on Ring Road in the provincial capital.

The approval was given by local government and rural development minister Inayatullah Khan during a meeting, said a news release issued here.

During the meeting, where Professor Umar Sadique, Zafar Paracha, Adil Siddique, Amjad Ahmad, Irfan Qureshi, Saleem Khan and officials of the Local Council Board, Peshawar were present, Professor Subhan Qureshi, dean of vet sciences at University of Agriculture Peshawar, gave a presentation on the project.

The relevant officials said the government would soon engage a consultant for establishing an advocacy forum to draft the proposed Dairy Science Park Act and give advice on how to promote meat production, improve hygienic status of meat produced in public and private sectors, address consumer concerns about meat’s quality, and get a place in the international Halal meat market.

They said infrastructural support would be provided for transportation of animals, construction of animal sheds, quarantine holding pens, ante mortem halls, showering facilities, light provisions, slaughtering halls, blood collection facilities, water supply and drainage, processing halls, bone collection and handling, meat grading and cutting, offal handling, blast freezing and cold storage.

Officials say project to improve meat productivity, quality control

The officials said the government would establish energy generation and waste management (biogas plant, solar energy, incinerators) and recycling of industrial by products.

They said transportation of covers in appropriate vehicles and display of meat at meat shops would be ensured in line with standard practices.

The officials said the proposed slaughterhouse would be supported by a quality control laboratory, a meat technology and entrepreneurship centre and a Halal research centre at the university in collaboration with Smeda, KPCCI, L&DD and farmer organisations under the dairy science park.

They said the quality control lab would help monitor the quality of meat at ante and postmortem stages in addition to assistance to the farmers’ entrepreneurs in getting to analysis of the farm inputs and products and investigation of zoonotic diseases.

According to them, the meat technology, training and entrepreneurship centre (business incubation centre) will be operationalised with the assistance of KPCCI, SMEDA, Bank of Khyber, BoK, KPBOIT, L&DD and HEC.

The Halal research centre will be established with the assistance of HEC, PCS&T and Muslim countries.

The officials said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dairy Science Park Act would be prepared in consultation with all stakeholders.

They said various options would be explored for engaging Turkish investors for investing 20 percent of the cost, technical assistance during designing, construction and installation of equipment, operationalisation of the slaughterhouse and capacity building of butchers and scientists.

The officials said a Turkish team was visiting Pakistan during the current month.

They said the project was aimed at improving meat productivity, quality control and Halal certification system in the province for local and international Halal meat markets.

Published in Dawn December 20th , 2014