‘National loss’, ‘non-serious’: NGT raps Punjab for failing to operationalise Ludhiana carcass processing plant, only third in country

In its latest order dated October 27 (copy of which was made available Wednesday), the Tribunal, while bashing the Punjab government and its counsel, said that during the last hearing on July 24 this year, Punjab was granted four weeks time to file a fresh affidavit but it never came.

The NGT bench has also ordered the Punjab government to furnish details of how carcasses generated on a daily basis are disposed of in the state. The bench has also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Punjab government for “repeated non-compliance” of green tribunal’s orders.

The case will be heard next on January 12 next year.

Established in 2021 to process animal remains into poultry feed granules, the plant has failed to operationalise due to continuous protests by the people from at least 12 nearby villages.

It is only third such plant in the country after Jodhpur and Delhi but protesting villagers near the plant say won’t let it function.

The NGT while ordering Punjab to furnish an affidavit within four weeks, said: “There is a connected issue as to how the carcass in the State is being disposed of. Thus we require the Principal Secretary, Environment to file an affidavit disclosing the cattle population in the State, the carcass which is generated monthly on account of death of cattle and the facilities which are available in the State to dispose of the carcass. The affidavit will also disclose the number of Hadda Rodis (illegal carcass dumping grounds) which are operating in the state.”

The villagers claim their lives “will become hell” if the unit starts functioning.

Last year, then Ludhiana deputy commissioner Sakshi Sawhney, had informed the NGT that the agitating villagers fear “social stigma, stench, ostracisation, fall in the value of their land etc..”.

The matter had reached NGT in 2023 after Ludhiana environmentalist and ex-serviceman Jasjit Singh Gill pleaded that open dumping of carcasses (hadda rodi) near Sutlej river was causing water pollution and environmental degradation, and hence the plant must be operationalized at the earliest.

Gill said in his petition: “The main problem is the practice of ‘Hadda Rori’ which is still ongoing right on the banks of the River Sutlej. Dead animals from adjoining areas of Ludhiana and Jalandhar are dumped near the river…all the pollution caused by flaying the carcasses.. are going straight into the river Sutlej without any treatment.”

In August 2024, the Punjab government informed the NGT that a sub-committee of two ministers was formed to solve the issue, and later it was decided to shift the plant to an alternate site. However, there’s no official word yet on where the plant will be shifted.