Hyderabad: Butchers raise fee for qurbani

Hyderabad: This year Bakr-Eid (Eid-al-Adha), butchers have increased their price for slaughtering sacrificial animals given the Coronavirus outbreak. They are demanding Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 to slaughter each goat or sheep. The price varies, depending upon height and weight of animal.

Every year during the three days of Bakr-Eid, several butchers would arrive in the city from nearby rural areas and neighbouring districts to earn money by slaughtering Qurbani animals. But this year due to pandemic there is a lack of butchers in city. It has also gone viral on social media that these butchers have been asked by their village panchayats not to visit city as it has a large number of Covid-19 cases. If they defied the panchayat diktats and still went to the city, they would not be allowed to return to the villages.

This has become a concern for the community which may face difficulties in slaughtering animals this Eid which will be observed on Saturday. However, no one seems to be running around to buy animals in the markets due to Corona outbreak, and whoever purchased animals are thinking about how to catch hold of butchers for sacrificing the animals. "Anyhow there are not many animals in market and if available the prices are touching sky. Even if one purchased animals, butchers are also charging more than Rs 1,000," said one Imtiyaz Ahmed. "Earlier, the butchers used to charge around Rs 600 and if animal is heavy and they would demand around Rs 1,000 for each animal. But now they are quoting a minimum of Rs 1,000," he added.

According to some of the local butchers, they have decided to take all safety measures while they go for slaughtering animals on Eid. They said that they will carry a sanitiser, disinfecting spray, gloves and face mask.

Most of the Quresh community had also underwent tests for Covid-19 and those who tested negative only would slaughter the animal. "This year butchers in the city have fixed their price for slaughtering of animal. Each animal will be slaughter for minimum Rs 1,000, depending upon animal size," said Naushad Qureshi, a butcher at Old City.

This year the traders are outsourcing the work in groups who not only buy sheep, goats, cattle for people but also slaughter the animals and deliver the meat at their doorsteps. "These traders are charging Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 for slaughtering, cleaning and cutting the meat with home delivery," said Pasha, a trader at Mallepally.