LAHORE: Poultry traders on Wednesday warned of observing another round of strike for an indefinite period from Monday if the government kept ignoring their demands.

“We in a meeting held on Wednesday decided to continue making efforts for getting our demands accepted by the government. But if our issues are not resolved till Sunday, we will resume from Monday our strike, which we deferred before Eid,” a press release issued by the Lahore poultry traders association reads.

The poultry traders, earlier on May 21 (Thursday) had deferred their strike in view of the Eid and the increasing public demand for chicken meat. They also decided to file a writ petition in the Lahore High Court soon after Eid against the government for capping the live chicken and meat prices, ignoring the mechanism of rates based on demand and supply. Owing to the strike no trader and retail outlets had chicken to sell before Eid that led to increased price of Rs350 per kg.

“We request the government to accept our demands - keep chicken price open as per previous mechanism rather than regulating it, stop arresting traders and retailers to press them to sell chicken at the regulated rate - till Sunday, failing which we will have no option but to observe strike in Lahore and other districts of Punjab,” the association warned.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2020