Seasonal skin trader Bakhtiar left 200 pieces of hides on the road in Chattogram after not getting the price for them from hoarders.
Bakhtiar says: “I bought each hide for Tk 350 - 400 and find that no one wants to give more than Tk 50 for one hide.”
Later, the hides left by Bakhtiar were taken away by city corporation people. Skins are also being found in dustbins. The seasonal traders allege that hoarders are responsible for the fall of the price.
Working through a syndicate, they are manipulating the price and the ministry of commerce is responsible for this, say seasonal traders.
The Chattogram district livestock official says: “This year, a total of 710,000 animals were sacrificed; of this, 500,000 were cows.”
But only 200,000 pieces of hides were collected, informed Nur Ahmed, general secretary of hide traders’ association.
Every year, we collect around five lakh pieces of skin but this time we got two lakh pieces and did not take any skin from the villages since they are small in size, he observed.
Explaining why they did not buy more, he commented: “Before Eid, traders suddenly increased the price of salt and another reason is the incapability of the ministry of commerce.”
I have never seen such a collapse; the industry worth crores is now in jeopardy as there is no government initiative to save it, he deplored.