KARACHI, Sept 23: There is no relief for consumers in the rates of poultry products, and farmers and wholesalers have pushed up rates to Rs126 per kg for live bird and Rs220 to 230 per kg for meat.

In the first week of September, the poultry live bird and meat rate had crossed Rs116 and Rs200 per kg, respectively.

The price had fallen in the second week of this month to Rs112 per kg, but from Sept 17, it again climbed to Rs118 per kg.

On Sept 19, the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) pushed up rate of live bird to Rs122 per kg while the Karachi Wholesalers Poultry Association fixed the rate at Rs130 per kg, up by Rs4 per kg from the PPA rate. KWPA’s retail meat rate is Rs220 per kg.

When asked why poultry people are enjoying a free-hand, a city government official said poultry does not fall in the list of 22 items of essential commodities finalised under the Sindh Essential Items Profiteering and Hoarding Act.

For many years, no serious effort has been made to include poultry in the essential items’ list.

The PPA and KWPA always push up rates during Ramazan to grab maximum profit on the last two days of the holy month when people throng markets to buy chicken for Eid.

PPA’s public relations official Abdul Maroof Siddiqui reiterated that the closure of 30 per cent farms in Sindh had resulted in hike in rates of poultry as demand increases in Ramazan.

He said that bulk of the demand (80 per cent) comes from caterers and hoteliers during Ramazan while consumers’ share of daily buying stands at 20 per cent.

He claimed that out of 5,000 farms in Sindh, some 3,500 are operating while the rest closed down in the last six months as they could not sustain huge losses when prices went below their cost of production.

The demand of live broiler bird in Karachi hovers between 500,000 and 550,000 birds daily, but currently only 350,000-400,000 birds are being slaughtered owing to short supply from poultry farms, he added.