Chicken prices made an astounding comeback in the State, to close at ₹200 per kg on Sunday from a low of ₹40 per kg just a few days ago.
Serpentine queues were witnessed outside poultry shops in Krishna, West Godavari and other districts in the State as customers finally began coming back to the dish that they had so hurriedly swore off in the wake of the coronavirus scare.
Thanks to hoax messages on social media, non-vegetarians swore off poultry products in the past one month. Prices of eggs too crashed to ₹2.50 paise each, with restaurants stopping the sale of non-vegetarian dishes to stem their losses.
Traders were forced to arrange ‘chicken and egg melas’ at different places in the State, and even gave away chicken and eggs free of cost to convince customers that the virus is in no way linked to food. However, the measures failed to have any impact, with prices continuing to spiral downwards.
However, thanks to a spate of awareness drives and assurances by experts that eating meat is perfectly safe, non-vegetarians finally began returning to chicken and mutton shops. Chicken prices returned to normalcy while egg prices too saw a rise. Mutton was sold at ₹600 per kg, while fish sold at ₹150 per kg and prawns at ₹200 per kg on Sunday.
