Poultry sales take a hit in city, egg prices dip by 30%

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 8

Outbreak of bird flu in the neighbouring district of Panchkula has affected the sale of poultry products in the city. The prices of chicken and eggs fell by nearly 30 per cent today.

Pigeon found dead in Sec 35 on Friday

Debendra Dalai said a pigeon was found dead in Sector 35 here on Friday. So far, a total of 10 birds, including a migratory bird, had been found dead in different areas of the city, including Sukhna Lake and it’s nearly areas, in the past four days. A common coot was found dead in Sukhna Lake on Tuesday. Dalai said so far a total of eight samples had been sent to the RDDL, Jalandhar, to ascertain the reasons behind deaths. They would get the reports of other samples soon.

Reports awaited

The Animal Husbandry Department, UT, had also collected more than 200 samples from poultry farms, live markets, water bodies, etc. The samples were sent to the RDDL, Jalandhar, but the reports were still awaited.

The prices of chicken today came down to Rs150 per kg, whereas it was selling for nearly Rs200 per kg before the deaths of lakhs of chickens were reported in the Barwala area of Panchkula. Similarly, the rates of eggs dropped to Rs160 per crate of 30 eggs from Rs190 per crate.

Ashish Kumar, president, Meat Market Association, Chandigarh, said the prices of eggs would be affected further in the coming days as nearly 70 per cent of the eggs in the northern states were supplied from the Barwala area.

He said already reeling under losses due to the lockdown, bird flu would further impact their businesses. Daily turnover of poultry products in the tricity was of nearly Rs40 lakh. Pawan Kumar, a shopkeeper at the Meat Market in Sector 21, said they get the supply of eggs from Barwala, but chickens were being supplied to the city from Ambala, Panipat and various areas of Punjab.

Rajender Singh, a resident of Sector 40, said his family members had stopped eating poultry products since they learned about the death of lakhs of chickens at various poultry farms in Barwala. He said they could not take the health risk at the cost of tantalising taste buds.

Two samples from

UT test negative

After reports of samples from poultry farms in Barwala tested positive for bird flu, two samples, including a migratory and a local bird, sent from Chandigarh to the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (RDDL), Jalandhar, have tested negative for avian influenza.

Debendra Dalai, Chief Conservator of Forests, UT, said the first set of samples of two birds —common coot and pigeon — sent to the RDDL, Jalandhar, for avian influenza had been tested negative.

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