& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Farm chicken price back to Tk 65

Bird flu fear 'seems over'

CITY CORRESPONDENT
Price of farm chickens that tumbled due to the bird flu fear last month has recovered from slump and shot up to Tk 65 a kilogram.
"The bird flu fear is over. Prices have returned to normalcy and sales are going up everyday," said Salauddin, owner of Bismillah Chicken House at Charulata Kitchen Market at Moghbazar.
The price of farm chicken fell to Tk 40 in mid-February when bird flu fear gripped a dozen Asian countries. Many countries slaughtered and destroyed millions of chickens to get rid of the virus. More than 20 people died in Vietnam and Thailand.
"We used to buy chickens at Tk 27 a kilogram from the whole-sellers and sell them at Tk 40 in mid-February. But still we had to count loss," said Salauddin.
Salauddin said the prices started increasing in the last 7-10 days. Even two weeks ago he had to persuade customers at Tk 50-55.
"But now we buy chickens from the whole-sellers at Tk 58-60, " said Omar Ali at Karwan Bazar market.
Omar said he used to sell two to three hundred chickens a day. In February it fell below 100.
But now the number is increasing fast. We sold around 200 chickens yesterday," said a beaming Omar Ali.
Salauddin said he used to supply around 200 chickens to a restaurant at Moghbazar but they almost stopped buying from mid February.
However, they have started placing orders again from last week, he said.
The salesman at the cash counter at Three-Star Kabab House near Moghbazar crossing admitted "we could not sell even ten grilled chickens a day. So, we stopped it. But people are again asking for grilled chickens and we now sell 40-50 a day".
Before February, the Kabab house used to sell around 100 grilled chickens a day, the salesman informed.
Tauhid Kabir, a consumer at Karwan Bazar said he believes that the bird flu has died down.
"We don't see any story on bird flu in newspapers these days. Besides, no such case has been detected in Bangladesh," said Tauhid.
The poultry farmers in the last two weeks launched several campaigns to allay bird flu fear. They alleged that "a vested quarter" was out to destroy the industry. They also blamed some newspapers.
About 1.5 lakh poultry farms have invested over Tk 7 thousand crore and about six million people are involved in the industry, leaders of Coordination Committee of Poultry Farms told a protest rally at Muktangon recently.
Quoting WHO (World Health Organisation), they said there is no existence of bird flu in the country and termed it a 'conspiracy'.
Some experts at a seminar at BAU (Bangladesh Agriculture University) last month also allayed fear that there was no bird flu case in the country.
But they suggested setting up of a 'reference laboratory cell' to test any suspected case.
Meanwhile, the poultry sellers feared that farm chicken prices may increase further as a huge number of small farm owners had to shut down their business in the last three weeks.