Double bonanza for meat traders

With two back-to-back festivals, Dasara and Bakrid, meat traders foresee a significant increase in the price of meat

Thanks to Dasara and Bakrid, mutton traders everywhere are all smiles as they expect huge demand for meat, which means that they would be raking in big moolah during the period.

For most Hindus, Dasara is the only festival in which they can consume meat, and with Bakrid falling three days after Dasara, butchers will be seeing a lot of customers. The price of sheep and goat usually rises during these festivals because of high demand. To meet the demand, cattle traders from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and other states bring goats and sheep to sell in the city markets.

With the two festivals in quick succession, traders foresee an increase in the prices of sheep, which will be somewhere between Rs 5,000 and Rs 6,000 for sheep weighing about 10 kilograms.

“We cannot rule out an increase by about Rs 3,000 even. It all depends on the demand and supply, but certainly there will be an increase owing to the seasonal demand,” says S Mahesh, a commission agent at the Ziyaguda sheep market.

“The markets are getting regular supplies from Andhra Pradesh too, irrespective of the bifurcation of the state,” says Ahmed Qureshi, a mutton shop owner.

Even as traders are looking forward to better business in the coming days, customers, on the other hand, are adopting a wait and watch policy.

“For the last few years, the price is high prior to Eid but the very next day the rates drop significantly,” an Old City resident says.