Published : 30 Jun 2023, 02:03 AM
Updated : 05 Jul 2023, 02:46 PM
Rains have subsided in the afternoon of Eid-ul-Azha day to revitalise activities among seasonal rawhide traders, while merchants and tanners have bought the hides of sacrificial cattle at “increased” rates.
The agents of merchants and tanners at Gulshan-2 in Dhaka said on Thursday they paid seasonal traders Tk 1,050 for the hide that was priced Tk 800 during last year’s Eid.
The rawhides are then sold to the merchants of trade hub Posta in Old Dhaka.
For tanners, who will buy the hides from the merchants, the government has increased the prices of rawhide by 6 percent for procurement during the Eid this year.
The price of salted cowhide has been set at Tk 50-55 per sq foot in Dhaka, compared to Tk 47-52 last year. It will cost Tk 45-48 to procure a sq foot of rawhide outside Dhaka.
Meanwhile, the price of goat leather has been fixed at a maximum of Tk 20 per sq foot.
At Gulshan-2, seasonal traders were bringing rawhides of sacrificed animals from Gulshan, Banani, Banasree, Badda and nearby areas as the day wore on. Madrasas, orphanages and mosques in the areas were also bringing donated rawhides to Gulshan-2.
The agents of merchants started their bargain after seasonal trader Afzal Hossain brought 60 hides. Hashem Mia, a tanner’s agent, bought the hides at Tk 900 per piece.
The agents of the tanner paid Tk 850 apiece for around 100 hides brought by the teachers of Darul Quasem Islamia Madrasa of Badda.
Seasonal trader Akter Hossain came to the Gulshan Azad Mosque ground with a target to buy over 3,000 rawhides.
“Prices of hides in Gulshan are high because the residents usually sacrifice big cows. I’ll mix these hides with those collected from other areas and then sell to the tanners or merchants.”
At Posta, the merchants preserve the hides with salt before selling them to the tanners of Savar.
In Chattogram, the chaos observed in the past few years was absent this time. Many seasonal traders had in the past been forced to dump unsold rawhides due to low prices or bad conditions.
This year, like last year, nearly 5,000 volunteers of the Gausia Committee under the Anjumane Rahmania Ahmadia Sunnia Trust collected rawhides in the city and sold them to the merchants.
Mohammad Abdullah, general secretary of the organisation’s port city unit, said they collected around 100,000 rawhides in 2022 and targeted to collect 150,000 this year.
Mahbub Alam, president of Greater Chattogram Rawhide Merchants Association, said he was paying Tk 500-550 per hide.
Muslim Uddin, another leader of the merchants association, denied allegations that the merchants manipulated prices in the past to make an extra profit.
“Actually the seasonal traders bought the rawhides at higher rates fixed by the government for tanners,” he said.
The merchants have targeted to collect 350,000 hides this Eid, Muslim said.
Mahbub and Abdullah believe the number of cattle slaughtered in Chattogram this Eid is fewer than the past.
Mahbub thinks the number has decreased by 30 percent in a year because many could not buy cattle due to high prices.
Abdulla said high prices forced many to share sacrificial animals with others, cutting the number of cattle slaughtered this year.
According to government estimates, farmers and commercial farms across the country prepared more than 12.5 million cattle heads, including over 4.8 million cows and buffaloes, against a demand for 10 million animals.
