Chicken price touches 300 a kg, burns hole in Kol kitchen budget
Times of India | 15 May 2024
Kolkata: Prices of chicken and eggs have gone up sharply across city markets over the last week. While dressed chicken is being sold at Rs 300 a kg, egg costs Rs 7 a piece, up from Rs 6 a couple of weeks ago. Chicken had been hovering around Rs 280 a kg for several weeks before the jump.
“The prices have started rising from the beginning of this week and could increase further,” said Md Mohsin, a poultry wholesaler in New Market.“The price rise of eggs and chicken will take a toll on our monthly budget and protein intake from May,” said Mohua Roy, a homemaker from Tollygunge.
“Even a week ago, I sold eggs at Rs 6 per piece but the price went up twice in a very short span,” said Soumitra Das, a shop owner.
Experts believe that the recent rise in prices of chicken and eggs is due to the effect of an elongated heat spell that ended last week.
“There is a drop of about 15% in poultry production across India due to the severe heatwaves. That is one of the reasons for the recent spike in prices,” said Madan Maity, general secretary of the West Bengal Poultry Federation.
“During the heatwave spell, I was forced to buy mutton and depended mostly on chicken since there was a sharp decline in the supply of local fish . Now, chicken price has also started rising,” said Biresh Mazumdar, a resident of Girish Park. Zibran Qureshi of Munna Meat Shop in Bhowanipur said, “The revised price of mutton, which touched Rs 850 per kg during the Holi period, has been the same for more than 45 days.”
“This is unusual in this period as this is not a wedding season when there is usually a demand-supply mismatch, resulting in a price hike,” said Tania Roy, an entrepreneur from Dum Dum.
From the first week of April, retail prices of fish in Kolkata have been high.
The markets are now completely dependent on supply of rohu, katla and prawns from Andhra Pradesh instead of local varieties due to lack of supply and the ban on fishing in coastal areas of Bengal from April 15.