Bhubaneswar: With the outbreak of bird flu reported at the poultry farm inside the campus of College of Veterinary Science & Animal Husbandry of OUAT here, sale of chicken meat and eggs have been badly affected in Smart City-Bhubaneswar.
While vendors claimed a 50% dip in sale of chicken meat and eggs, the biggest chicken market of the city in Unit-IV wore a deserted look.
“People are in a panic. While we used to sell a quintal of chicken meat on a non-veg day like Wednesday, the sale has dropped to almost half. It’s down by 40-50%,” said Sk. Chand, a chicken meat seller of Unit-IV market today.
“Today is Wednesday, it’s a non-veg day. While a 100 buyers to visit my shop earlier, only 25 have turned up today. If things continue like this for long we will starve,” said Sk. Ibu, a chicken meat and egg seller of Unit IV market.
“Business is down. People are not even visiting this market, especially the chicken market because of the bird flu scare,” said another chicken meat seller Dipu.
Consumers preferred not to consume chicken meat and eggs as it could put their lives on risk.
“When a bird flu outbreak has been declared, we shouldn’t even touch these products. If we don’t we are going to put our lives to risk. Awareness among people is the need of the hour. The world is not going to halt if we refrain from consuming these for a few days,” said DC Paikray, a regular buyer of chicken meat.
“We have stopped consuming chicken meat ever since the bird flu outbreak has been reported. We are managing with fish,” said Sanjukta Swain, a housewife.