(Lahore-NewsHalal, Dhu-AlQa’dah 21, 1436, September 05, 2015) Punjab Halal Development Agency (PHDA), a provincial agency in Pakistan and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded Punjab Enabling Environment Project (PEEP) have jointly launched a training program for butchers and other slaughtering associates in which more than 500 persons will be trained to slaughter and process the animals for meat as per Islamic Shariah laws.
According to media reports in Pakistan, these trainings will educate the butchers about authentic Islamic knowledge on Halal and Tayyab (hygiene) principles. After the completion of training program, butchers will be given licence and only licensed butchers can work in the slaughterhouses. By-laws regarding slaughter men training and licensing were jointly prepared by Local Government and Community Development Department (LG&CD) and PHDA.
The PHDA was nominated for training and licensing by LG&CD. While addressing in a training workshop held in Lahore, Justice Khalil-u-Rehman Khan said that due to unawareness about Islamic slaughtering procedures, butchers are providing (makrooh) meat to the consumers, after the completion of training workshops, only PHDA approved butchers will be allowed to work in the meat business. He said that Government has already notified the same procedures.
The whole project is funded by USAID-PEEP project. USAID, through its Punjab Enabling Environment Project, has collaborated with PHDA to provide in-kind and technical assistance to help strengthen the human and institutional capacity of the organization and improve the overall business environment for increased investments in the Halal meat segment of the livestock sector.
USAID PEEP is a five-year, $15 million project which will improve the business environment for the dairy, livestock and horticulture sub-sectors by promoting policy and regulatory reforms through private sector-led advocacy.
Awareness about Halal is rapidly growing in Pakistan and food & beverage industry in particular focusing to Halal certification. But there is lack of national level programs to arrange training of butchers and Halal compliant slaughter houses in Pakistan. Recently, number of cases related to unhygienic meat were surfaced in Punjab province which rises concerns among the masses about safety of the meat and Halal status of meat in the country.
