MEAT AD LISTS BEEF, LANDS ZOO IN A SOUP

MUMBAI: A Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) advertisement inviting tenders to provide meat for animals of Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo in Byculla accidentally mentioned cow meat instead of buffalo meat. The error led to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manoj Kotak writing to the civic chief to take action against the person responsible. Zoo officials, however, clarified that they have been procuring buffalo meat for the animals and that the advertisement was wrongly printed. A BMC tender invitation notice in a few regional newspapers on October 9 invited tenders to supply buffalo meat for the animals in the zoo. As per the tender, 12-15kgs of meat will have to be supplied. In his letter to civic chief Ajoy Mehta, Kotak wrote, “Supply of cow meat for the animals in the zoo is against the Central and state law of 2015 on beef ban. The BMC must investigate as to who is responsible for this tender and if it is an error, then the concerned officer should be punished.” Sanjay Tripathi, director of the Byculla zoo said, “There has been a mistake in the translation as the tender was to supply buffalo meat and not cow beef. A few Hindi and Gujrati newspapers had translated it wrongly but the ad came out correct in Marathi papers. Buffalo meat is allowed under the Act. We have prepared the tender keeping in mind our future needs after the zoo’s expansion.”