Staff Reporter :
The sale of sacrificial cattle got momentum in the capital’s cattle markets from Friday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the traders and farmers still waiting to rise the sale much more as the city dwellers used to buy sacrificial animals in nearing days of the Eid-ul-Azha, scheduled to be observed on Sunday.
“I sold six oxen by Friday afternoon out of 20 cattle, while only two were sold over the past three days”, said Rajab Ali, a cattle trader at Gandraia-Doyagonj makeshift Cattle Market in the city.
Rajab Ali, came from Nagarpur upazila of Tangaile district said customers are bargaining to buy cattle continuing and they hope the sale will be increased soon.
Alif Hossain, a landlord of Gandaria, bought an oxen weighing about 170 kgs at Tk 115,000.
He said the price is still much higher than that of a year ago.
Abu Ahmed, a cattle farmer from Chuadanga, brought 20 oxen and three cows to in Kamlapur makeshift cattle market.
He said sold five animals on Friday after noon.
“Most of my oxen weigh 200-220 kgs and customers are still bargaining for buying the rest of those,” he said .
My minimum expenditure for each animal is Tk 150,000, but customers are offering below the reasonable prices, he said.
Abdul Hashem , Manager of Gabtoli permanent Cattle Market said sales increased to some extent from Friday afternoon.
He said that they were expecting trading to increase notably on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, Yahya Ahmed, an employee of Gandaria cattle market said total sale might decreased this year amid the tough economic condition of middle and low middle income people.
He said that the sale might not reach to the level of previous years.
officially selling of sacrificial animals began on Wednesday in the city’s 19 makeshift markets leased-out by the two city corporations this year.
Apart from the makeshift markets, sales began at two permanent markets including Gabtoli in Dhaka North City Corporation and Sharulia in Demra in Dhaka South City Corporation areas, earlier.
Traders and farmers came from different districts, said cattle rearing costs have increased by 40-50 per cent this year amid a surge in prices of cattle feed like, straw, oil cake, wheat bran, other items and transportation costs.
Meanwhile, the department of livestock service (DLS), said that it has a target for the trading of 9.7 million cattle across the country this year’s Eid-ul-Azha.
DLS said the availability of cattle for this Eid is one crore and 21 lakh in cattle farms across the country.
