Srinagar: The fear triggered by the news of bird flu and other diseases in poultry has done what all the initiatives of the Kashmir administration to keep rates of chicken under control could not do. Much to the delight of chicken lovers, the bird is selling these days at only Rs 100 a kg in Kashmir.
Rates of chicken have remained under Rs 100 per kg for quite some time now, almost Rs 50 down from the normal rate, ever since reports about the spread of bird flu began appearing. This is the lowest rate in recent years and also the sharpest fall as during the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, the rates had gone up to Rs 170 a kg, despite many measures taken by the administration to keep them under Rs 125 a kg.
“Between Rs 90 and Rs 100 is what one kg fetches us,” said Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, President of the Kashmir Valley Poultry Farmers Union. “It has been good for common people, but for us, it is a loss of around Rs 40 per kg.”
Bhat said that the poultry traders have collectively suffered as much as Rs 50 crore losses in the Rs 1,500-crore industry that provides livelihood to about 7,000 poultry farmers in Kashmir.
According to Bhat, a poultry farmer buys a newborn chick when it is only a day old, at about Rs 50, and then for 30 days he spends on nourishing it, by which time the cost incurred on it comes to about Rs 100.
For consumers, though, the low prices are nothing but good news. “It is has been done by god, nobody else,” said Abdul Lateef, a 70-year-old resident of downtown Srinagar.
“This was actually the ripe time for chicken sellers to raise the rates,” Lateef pointed out. “The highway through which mutton arrives in the Valley was shut for weeks, causing shortage of mutton in the market. This could have been exploited by the chicken sellers, making huge profits.”
Lateef cited the example of last year when the shortage of mutton raised the rates of poultry to Rs 190 a kg, which was an all-time high.

Junaid Nabi Bazaz