A day after the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) House approved a proposal mandating a distance of 150 metres between meat shops and places of worship and increasing the annual licence renewal fee, the city’s meat traders said on Wednesday that they will take the matter to court if the proposal is not rolled back.
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The proposal, which will become a policy after it gets the MCD Commissioner’s nod, will affect nearly 6,000 shops that sell various kinds of meat, including mutton, chicken, pork, and fish, in areas under the civic body.
As per the proposal, the distance between meat shops and religious places will be measured through public pathways or roads. Meat shops located within a 150-metre radius of a religious place will be sealed.
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The proposal also increases the annual licence fee to ₹18,000. Delhi’s meat shops currently pay a fee based on the rates decided by the three erstwhile municipal bodies (which were merged into a unified MCD in January 2022). Meat shops in south Delhi pay ₹7,000, in north ₹3,300, and in east ₹5,500.
Arshad H. Qureshi, the Delhi Meat Merchants’ Association president, said the proposed policy will impact small-scale meat sellers and encourage corruption. He added that the traders’ body will meet Mayor Shelly Oberoi and Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena to request them to roll back the MCD House’s decision. “If they still go ahead, we will file an appeal in court,” he said.
Shehzad Qureshi, a meat shop owner of 25 years in east Delhi’s Mandawali, said the new policy might force him to shut his business.