Mohammad Yusuf, 69, running “New Pakija Hotel” at Jama Masjid meat market on Old Railway Road here, earns barely enough to make both ends meet. He cannot afford to shut his shop even for a single day. But, with the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram officials visiting the market every Tuesday for the past two weeks, asking the shopkeepers to shut their establishments, he is left with no choice.
The elderly said he had been running the hotel for over five decades, but it was for the first time that the authorities had imposed the order to shut it once in a week.
Adding to woes
Mr. Yusuf said that his hotel remained shut for two months during the COVID-19 lockdown, and now the civic body had come with a new ruling to shut it every Tuesday. He said that he hardly made ₹1,000-1,500 per day.
He recalled how a bunch of municipal officials came to the market, housing 20-odd shops, two weeks ago and again this past week asking the shopkeepers to shut their shops. “It is only the Muslim customers who come on Tuesdays. There are no Hindus. So what’s the point in making us shut the shops,” a disappointed Mr. Yusuf asked.
Just opposite the “New Pakija Hotel”, Farman runs “Bilal Kureshi meat shop”. He said he incurred a loss of over ₹2,000 on account of closure of his shop for a single day. The daily rent of his shop is around ₹500, besides he also needs to pay the two employees.
Mohammad Aijaz, a customer, said that his religion did not bar him from consuming non-vegetarian food on any day of the week, but he was still “fine” with the order prohibiting the sale of meat on Tuesdays in the city.
Anoop Aggarwal, owner of Mughal Hotel in the market, is more vocal in his criticism of the civic body.
Interfering move
He said that it amounted to interfering with the eating habits of the individuals. “What to eat and what not to eat is one’s personal choice,” said Mr. Aggarwal. He said that his business was, in fact, brisk on Tuesdays.
He said that the municipal officials asked him to close his hotel, but he argued with them saying that the hotels were outside the ambit of the order. “I keep my hotel open on Tuesdays, but with the other shops in the market remaining closed the footfall is less,” said Mr. Aggarwal, running the hotel for around two decades.
Jama Masjid meat market president Tahir said that many meat shop owners had applied for licences last year, but were yet to get one. He feared that they would be impacted since the civic body had increased the fine 10 folds for running shops illegally and they ran the risk of being sealed.
Parveen, manager at Green Chick Chop meat shop in Sector 15 Part-2, said the sales on Tuesdays were almost one-third compared to the rest of the week and therefore, the order did not hurt them much financially. The staffers at “Sardar A Pure Meat Shop” in the market said they kept the shop closed on Tuesdays due to slow business.
Other penalties
The general meeting of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram’s House on March 18 had unanimously decided to keep all meat shops shut on Tuesdays, besides imposing a fine of ₹5,000 on illegal shops and sealing them. The House also decided to increase the annual licence fee from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000. The MCG had granted licence to only 129 meat shops in 2017-18, though the number of meat shops in the city could run into several hundred.
Ashwani Sharma, Councillor for Ward No. 23, who supported the resolution, argued that the decision was taken in the interest of the shopkeepers since the business was anyway slow on Tuesdays. “Since a majority of meat consumers are Hindus and they don’t usually consume meat on Tuesdays, the demand is less on Tuesdays. Had the House decided to shut the shops on the weekend, it would have caused more financial loss to the shopkeepers” said Mr. Sharma.
He, however, added that the implementation of the order was almost nil and that he would move the court to ensure its implementation, if required.
Ashish Singla, MCG Chief Medical Officer, said the civic body was within its powers to declare one day of the week as non-meat day as per the Haryana Urban Local Bodies bylaws, 2008.
