With the skyrocketing prices of sacrificial animals in the provincial capital, a large number of faithful have decided to opt for combined sacrifice of animals on the forthcoming Eid-ul-Azha. According to a survey, majority of the middle group earners would not be able to sacrifice animals on Eid-ul-Azha independently due to highly inflated rates, 50 to 80 percent higher than last year.
After the two-month catastrophic flooding situation in Sindh, the hub of production of animals, there is a shortage of hundreds of thousands of animals, due to which the rates of animals are quite high, said livestock traders here at Lamb Market (Bakar Mandi) while talking to APP Thursday.
They said that the high prices of sheep, goats, cows and other animals have forced people to favour joint sacrifice for Eid in early November this year. On average, the price of goat has climbed to 21,000 rupees, while cow costs Rs 35,000 to 40,000-according to a survey of major markets of Lahore.
"A middle-class person's salary is about Rs 15,000 to 20,000 per month only and he cannot offer sacrifice independently on Eid", said a citizen doing white collar job. "The rates are beyond my budget - it's not possible for me to perform this Islamic obligation," said another citizen Usman Mughal.
Yousaf Khan, a cattle trader from Hyderabad said, "A large number of cattle were lost in the floods and this is the basic reason for the high rates". Another market trader, Sabir Khan, was not convinced that floods alone is the major culprit: "A large number of animals are being smuggled to Afghanistan. Cattle fetch even higher prices in the neighbouring war-torn country where livestock is in short supply all year round". "There is no price control mechanism so the traders are demanding their own high prices," said buyer Khalid Shah, adding that he would pool his funds with others to buy one animal for Eidul Azha this year.