AMRITSAR: After facing losses for the past consecutive two years owing to coronavirus pandemic-induced restrictions, the sacrificial animal dealers in Amritsar are reaping windfalls with the high demand for sheep and goats not only from Punjab but also from neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory (JKUT).
"There is so much demand that no sacrificial goat or sheep is available less than Rs 15,000 in the market," said a livestock dealer Aamdeen. He said past two years there wasn’t any significant demand and they had to suffer huge losses.
Besides huge demand, a local senior resident Anwar ul Huda attributed the high price of the sacrificial animals to the declining trend of raising the sacrificial animals at home, especially by the younger generation.
"Younger generation finds it inconvenient to raise the sacrificial animals at home so they prefer to purchase the animal from the market and that’s why the prices have gone up", he opined adding that during his youthful days he used to raise the sacrificial animals and take good care of their feed and health.
Going down memory lane, Anwar said in the past many families used to raise sacrificial animals but not anymore. "None of my known family is raising the sacrificial animal this time," he said.
He said he couldn’t find a suitable sacrificial goat for less than Rs 21,000 in the market adding that the bakar-eid economics had taken a toll of ‘shouq’ of raising bakra’s at home.
Imam of Masjid Khairuddin Hamid Hussain Kazmi informed that Eid- al-Adha is popularly known as Bakar-Eid would be celebrated on July 10. He blamed inflation for the surge in the prices of sacrificial animals. "This year the inflation has boosted the price of sacrificial animals by over twenty percent," he said.
Aamdeen who had arrived in Amritsar from Rajasthan to sell sacrificial animals informed that many animal dealers had arrived from Srinagar to purchase animals from Amritsar and other markets of Punjab. He said there wasn’t any demand from JKUT in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic but now the business was as usual. Eom
