LUCKNOW: With not a single proposal for new abattoirs and expansion of existing ones seeing the light of day, UP’s meat industry, which in 2016 accounted for 70% of India’s meat export, is gasping for breath.Highly placed sources told TOI that 18 proposals are pending for approval before the urban development department.“The total value of these proposals is approximately Rs 15,000 crore and they have the capacity to generate over 50,000 jobs,” a reliable source said. Till 2016-17, UP was the mainstay of India’s pink revolution. But, after coming to power in March 2017, the Yogi Adityanath government launched a state-wide crackdown on illegal abattoirs and slaughter houses. The action saw closoure of not only slaughter houses but also meat shops running without licence for over a month.A panel formed to go through these proposals after the initial crackdown on meat industry last year has not met even once. An inside source said that eight proposals were already pending when the SP government was in power and 10 more have landed after March 2017.Urban development principal secretary Manoj Kumar Singh, who heads the multi-department statelevel committee for giving approval to abattoirs, confirmed that no permission had been granted for any new slaughter houses in the past one year. Singh said the government had received some applications in this regard but had not approved any of them.

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