Meat pricier as cattle market lessee overcharges

Beef and mutton in the capital would have been less expensive if the meat traders who buy the animals from the lone permanent cattle market at Gabtoli were not “overcharged” by the market lessee.

Demanding an end to the practice, the traders enforced a six day strike in the city that ended yesterday. Today, they are scheduled to meet the commerce minister to resolve the issue.

Robiul Alam, secretary general of Bangladesh Meat Merchant Association, claimed that city dwellers could buy beef at Tk 300 a kg instead of the current Tk 450-500 had there been no overcharging and some other issues. Mutton would have been Tk 500 per kg instead of Tk 800, he added.

Contacted, Sanwar Hossain, manager of the lessee, Lutfar Rahman, refuted the allegation. He said they were not taking any extra.

Robiul announced that the traders would resume the sale of red meat in the markets today.

“We have a meeting with Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed at 11:00am and another one with Dhaka North City Corporation at 2:00pm,” he said, adding that they were hopeful that the authorities would accept their demands.

Based on the outcomes of the meetings, they would announce their next course of action at a press conference at their Gabtoli office around 5:00pm, he added.

The meat traders went on strike on Monday, protesting overcharging of fees (hasil) by the lessee at the Gabtoli cattle market, the prime source of red meat in Dhaka.

This left city dwellers in trouble, specially the crisis deepened at the weekend when the demand is usually high.

Robiul said for the traders, the toll fixed by the city corporation is Tk 50 for a cow, Tk 70 for a buffalo, and Tk 15 for a goat or a ram but traders have been paying between Tk 200 and Tk 5,000 in toll for each animal over the last nine months.

Most of them couldn't make profit due to “excessive toll collection” by the lessee, he alleged.

Robiul demanded the government take step to legalise import of cattle from Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Nepal and take action against “the corrupt officials” of the DNCC, who were allegedly letting the injustice to happen.

Besides, he alleged a syndicate of the tannery owners, who did not move their factory from Hazaribagh to Savar yet, controlled the price of raw hide.

He said they have to sell a raw hide of cow for Tk 200 to Tk 1,000 as opposed to the previous price of Tk 4,000 and 5,000 per piece. For this reason, price of red meat also increased, he added.

“The government can meet our two demands -- cancellation of the lease of Gabtoli Cattle Market for violating the contact by overcharging and remove the corrupt officials of DNCC -- very easily.”

“If these two demands are met, the price of red meat will come down,” he added.