UP meat vendors strike: AMU VC sets up committee to look into food woes of students

Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University Vice Chancellor Lt Gen Zamer Uddin Shah on Saturday said prolonged non-availability of meat could lead to “resentment” as buffalo meat is the “staple diet” of students and set up a committee to manage supply of essential items to all messes.

Supply of meat to the city, especially buffalo meat, has been severely affected after the crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh. With meat dishes off the menu, AMU students had recently written to the VC seeking his intervention in the matter.

University spokesman Omar Peerzada said the immediate priority of this committee of five senior university officials would be to set up a system of centralized purchase of meat through licensed vendors.

The Vice Chancellor sounded a note of caution on the supply of meat to nearly 20,000 university students residing in different halls of the university. “Prolonged non-availability could lead to resentment since buffalo meat is the staple diet of students,” Shah told PTI.

He expressed hope that the state government and the local administration would take urgent steps to bring the situation under control.

According to Tariq Anwar, Secretary of the newly formed Aligarh Meat Sellers Association, there has been no improvement in the supply of buffalo meat. While about 20 per cent of the supply of mutton has been restored and a handful of mutton shops have reopened, the overall supply of meat items, not only in Aligarh but in all surrounding districts of UP, continues to be disrupted.

All unauthorized slaughterhouses have come to a standstill and there is still a long way to go for the restoration of legalized slaughterhouses, he said. The main reason behind the present crisis is a fear psychosis that has gripped the contractors who used to transport livestock after a number of incidents of assault on transporters carrying live buffaloes.

This has severely hit the supply chain of livestock including those meant for meat export units. Aligarh City is home to many meat export plants in the state.