The prices of sacrificial animals on the eve of Eidul Azha have gone up at district cattle markets in upper Sindh. However, in the flood-hit lower Sindh districts their prices are comparatively lower.

Livestock traders from Karachi, Faisalabad, Lahore and Gujranawala have thronged these rain-ravaged districts and set up their camps there to purchase sacrificial animals and send them onward to their hometowns to fetch better prices.

According to Director General Sindh Livestock Department Dr Ghulam Sarwar around 2,32,000 large and small animals had perished in recent deluge in Sindh. He said that animals had also lost their weight in rain-affected areas of lower Sindh due to none-availability of chaff and grass.

In the desert area where there was no grass and water to graze animals, cattle owners were shifting their herds to areas of Badin, Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar, Sanghar, Tando Mohammad Khan and Shaheed Benazirabad where water had receded.

He said the remaining 250,000-300,000 cattle heads in the desert area would be shifted to safer places within a week. Due to reduced weights of animals, prices of livestock had fallen in lower Sindh. Most affected were cattle owners who had fewer cattle heads, he said.

One of the affected owners of Matli taluka of Badin district, Abdul Haq Notkani, said his eight out of 20 animals had perished in recent rains. The remaining 12 were shifted to Nagar Parker of Thar area. After water receded in the Matli area, he brought them back but they were not in good health. He said he had to sell four of his goats and five cows at cheaper price in the market.

In the cattle market of Dadu town, Abdul Latif Solangi, who had purchased a sacrificial goat, said that he had purchased a goat for Rs30,000 for this Eid whereas he had purchased a goat of similar size for Rs18,000 last year. Livestock traders from Karachi and Punjab had arrived in Dadu for purchasing sacrificial animals which had boosted price of animals in the local markets.

Ahmed Ali, a resident of Amniani, a small town in Katcho area of Dadu district, who had brought five cows to sell in the cattle market of Dadu town, said that Katcho area was completely flooded during the super floods of 2010 and a large number of animals had perished in the deluge and suffered various diseases. This year animals from Amniani area were healthy and traders were getting the demand prices. He said that he had sold his cows for Rs60,000 each to a trader of Karachi.

A Cattle trader from Karachi Subhan said that he had purchased 100 goats, 50 cows and 10 buffalos from cattle market in Dadu and sent them to Karachi for sale. He would purchase more animals through middlemen from cattle Pirri of Bhan Syedabad, Johi, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Mehar, Larkana, Sukkur, Jaccobabad and Shikarpur and would sell them in Karachi during Eid to earn hefty profit, he added. He said he was purchasing a goat for Rs30,000 to Rs35,000 each and expected to sell them at Rs40,000-41,000 each in the cattle market of Karachi.

The transportation charges had gone very high this year as compared to last year, he said and added that he had booked 10 trailers for Rs50,000 each to ferry animals to Karachi. He said that he was sending 12-15 cattle heads in each trailer.

At the cattle market in Larkana, a buffalo owner Illahi Bux said he had sold his two buffaloes for Rs1,50,000 each to a livestock dealer in Gujranwala. It was a good price for his buffaloes, he said. Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Larkana town, said that prices of animals were very high that was why many people were returning without purchasing any sacrificial animal this year.