Selling begins in city’s cattle markets before the schedule
Defying the office order, selling of sacrificial animals in the city’s 12 makeshift cattle markets, along with the permanent cattle market at Gabtali, has already started with four days left for Eid-ul-Azha, one of the two major festivals of the Muslims.
Though the Dhaka City Corporation has leased out the cattle markets for four days from November 14, trading was seen in almost all the makeshift cattle markets on Friday, two days ahead of the schedule.
The number of buyers on the day was, however, not much bigger as many people went to the cattle markets to weigh this year’s cattle price.
Traders in the Gabtali cattle market said about 300 to 350 trucks of cattle were entering the market every day from different corners of the country and from outside the country.
The traders like every year claimed that the prices of the cattle were higher than previous years as supply of cattle was thin.
A trader in the Gabtali market alleged that they were not getting price of cow up to the mark.
‘We are not being able to make even minimum profit as the cost of bringing up a cow has increased with the increase of cattle foods,’ said Saidul, a cattle trader of Kusthia, who brought cattle to the Gabtali market.
Cattle with price ranging from Tk 10,000 to four to five lakhs were available in the city market.
The trading at other makeshift cattle markets is yet to get momentum. People who went to the city’s makeshift cattle markets on Friday were seen reluctant to buy sacrificial animals on their first visit to the market.
‘I am weighing the prices. If I get a cow within my budget, only then I would buy a cow,’ Aminur Rashid, an employee of a private bank, told New Age at Agargaon cattle market.
Asked how the leasees of makeshift cattle markets were running their market two days before the schedule, DCC’s executive magistrate Khalil Ahmed said, ‘In fact, they are not trading. The cattle were just entering the market.’
‘Where will they keep their cattle?’ he asked.
He said the DCC have already evicted three illegal makeshift cattle markets from the capital’s Uttara, Tejgaon and Beribadh area.
‘Apart from a DCC team for each of the cattle market, two mobile courts of the DCC will remain vigilant in the run up to the Eid on November 17 to check illegal cattle markets on the city roads as well as other irregularities in the markets,’ he said.
However, locals alleged that the Nayabazar cattle market leasees were seen making preparations for trading cattle on roads nearby the earmarked market place.
