KARACHI, May 11: Meat merchants have stopped selling beef and mutton in the evening on account of shortage of live animals and export and smuggling of meat.
Meat sellers of big markets have displayed banners outside their shops urging the government to impose a ban on the export of meat and live animals and take strict measures to check their smuggling into neighbouring countries.
Shopkeepers think that the decision taken last week by the Meat Merchants Welfare Association (MMWA) to restrict the sale of meat in the evening will somehow help control the shortage of meat and satisfy the daily consumption demand. But market people doubt if this move can achieve the desired results as people may buy meat in bulk during mornings and afternoons.
Meat dealers say that banners have been placed in major meat markets instead of small ones, asking consumers to make purchase before 5.00pm. Office-bearers of the MMWA have started visiting markets to monitor the sale. They say the markets have been facing an acute shortage of live animals for the past two years. The situation has now become grave and the government has yet to take any decision on the export and smuggling of meat.
The price of beef has gone up by Rs20-30 per kg in two years, and the mutton price has increased by Rs50 per kg in the same period.
Meat sellers are charging Rs110 per kg for bachia meat (boneless), while meat with bones is now being retailed at Rs85 per kg. In some markets it is being sold at Rs90 per kg.
Meat without bones (big cow) is being sold at Rs100-110 per kg and the rate of meat with bones is Rs80-85 per kg. Mutton is now selling at Rs160 per kg, while in the posh areas retailers are charging Rs170 per kg.
Meat merchants have been urging a ban on the export of live animals and meat, and a check on the huge smuggling of live animals and meat into neighbouring countries, so that the market prices could stabilise.
“We are highly perturbed by the smuggling of live animals in large numbers to Iran and Afghanistan. This is the main cause of the shortage and the high prices,” a meat merchant said, also attributing the shortage to the export of meat.
An Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) official told Dawn that the export of meat preparations had risen by 164 per cent between July 2002 to March 2003, to $6.03 million as compared to $2.28 million in the same period of the last fiscal year.
Saudi Arabia and Dubai are the main buyers of beef, mutton and sheep meat. “The export of meat preparations is expected to reach $12-13 million by the end of 2003,” said the EPB official.
A live-animal exporter denies that the prices are going up due to export, but accepts that that live animals are being smuggled to Iran and Afghanistan.
“Last month the government laid down several procedures and rules under which exporters have to seek the NOC from the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock for the export of live animals. This new procedure has already disappointed the exporters and hampered the export,” he said, and added that butchers and wholesalers had raised the prices on the pretext of shortage of animals.
Meat merchants are of the view that the markets are actually faced with the consequences of the closure of the Sindh-Rajhistan border in January 2002, as 40-50 per cent of the meat demand used to be catered for with the animals smuggled from India through that border. The problem has been further intensified by the export of animals and meat, according to Sikandar Iqbal, joint secretary of the MMWA.
