BHUBANESWAR: This is the marriage season in Odisha, a time when chicken are much sought after even if that love is unrequited. The poultry trade ought to have been great business at this time but demonetization has put paid to that. A 2000 buck note in the poultry markets of Bhubaneswar today is unlikely to get you chicken, well, whatever.
In the first few days after Nov. 8, when the shock of Narendra Modi’s kamikaze attack on the 500 and 1000 notes was fresh, the markets were in a dazed stupour. Four weeks hence, the markets are still deserted, and the chicken are crowing away to glory.
Manohar Saha, a trader New Indian Express spoke to, said his business is down 20 per cent. “We sold dressed chicken at Rs 160 a kilo in the first week of November. Now we’ve brought it down to Rs 120 a kg but there’s hardly any buyer. My sales have come down from 50 kg a day to 15 kg,” he said.
Eggs are happy too. There just aren’t enough tenners, twenties and hundreds around to buy them. Traders who were selling 30-50 packets of eggs (each containing 30 eggs) are barely able to move 10 packets at a Rs 60 to the dozen.
Consumer Dilip Behera of Jaydev Vihar said he loves chicken but standing for four hours in an ATM queue is not his thing. “We buy two kg of chicken a week. But I don’t want to stand in queues before ATMs to have chicken! Yesterday I went into a shop a tried to buy a bird but the shopkeeper wouldn’t accept my Rs 2,000 note,” said.
Officials of the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department confir,ed that the poultry business has taken a huge hit. “People would rather forego their chicken than their small cash,” said an official.
Odisha produces 76,000 metric tonnes of chicken meat daily and 52 lakh eggs.