The only relief the crackdown seems to have brought is that the meat plants don’t litter streets anymore. They no longer release their waste into external drains.

“All of these plants have dug borewells within their premises, and they pump their liquid waste into the ground. No eyebrows are raised as it’s not visible to outsiders,” said Gurjar.

A meat plant worker confirmed this to Swarajya. Speaking on a condition of anonymity, he said that even though effluent treatment plants are mandatory and all meat plants do have them on paper, none exists and all the waste is pumped underground through borewells.

This means that while the ground continues to get contaminated, it’s now done away from the public eye. The mandatory diktat on effluent plants is not followed. To make matters worse, public outrage against the slaughterhouses has reduced.

Meat plants have made another change in their modus operandi, one that could further add to the water woes of the residents in the near future.

In order to reduce waste, they have started to sell most of the solid waste as eatable, and it’s consuming a large amount of water.

A trade insider, speaking anonymously, told Swarajya that these days, parts of animals that were earlier thrown away as waste are now being supplied to the market.

“Leave aside the heads and nails of the chicken; hoofs, horns, and skin of cows, buffaloes and goats; and scrotum in the case of male animals. Everything else is now being consumed and, therefore, has commercial value,” he said. “Their intestines would earlier be discarded, but now they are not.”

The meat plant worker we spoke to, confirmed this. He said intestines, particularly that of buffaloes, are in demand abroad, particularly in China, and are thus an essential part of their exports.

The insider said that while “upper classes” eat the “better” parts, such as the chest, leg, and back of the animal, “lower classes” eat the “waste” parts, too.

“They clean intestines in boiled water and eat it after filling it with spices. Skin of the chicken, earlier discarded as a practice, is now roasted and eaten,” he said.

He said such consumption by the “lower sections” was earlier catered to by small-scale local butchers, but now even large meat plants have begun supplying this “waste” to the market.

He admitted that this trend has adverse side-effects, as it not only increases the liquid waste, which is drained into the ground, but also uses far more water in the processing of the “waste”.

Nuisance For Residents But Boon For Politics

Many people in the trade happen to be political figures with the strong backing of their parties. Yakub Qureshi, a former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lawmaker, was the contractor of Meerut’s controversial kamela, and it is said that it was only due to bad blood between him and Samajwadi Party (SP) strongman Azam Khan that the kamela could be razed to the ground.

On the other hand, Al Fahim Meatex, one of the largest Indian exporters of buffalo meat, has demolition orders dating back to 2017 after it came to light that its plant was built on government land. But nothing has happened till date, and the plant continues to function despite sporadic calls for action.

Since the meat trade primarily involves the Muslim community, the discourse around it is highly politicised. In the run-up to the 2019 general election, the issue of stray cattle is being raked up, with a large section of the media blaming it on Yogi Adityanath’s crackdown on slaughterhouses. The crackdown is being seen as an attack on the Muslim community.