KARACHI, May 12: Meat prices continue to rise as the strike by livestock traders against the city government’s tax drive entered ninth day on Monday.

The city has not received a fresh supply of big animals for more than one week, while the meat demand is being fulfilled mostly with dry buffaloes or through the supplies from illegal abattoirs, sources said.

In a related development, the contractors hired by the city government stopped vaccinating dairy animals being brought into the metropolis though they continued to charge traders of Rs50 per animal now in the name of a medical check-up.

According to market sources, there has been an increase of 47 per cent in the prices of beef and 14.3 per cent in mutton prices. It has been over a week now that livestock traders have completely stopped transport of big animals to the markets of Karachi from the interior of Sindh and Punjab, while the supply of mutton has been suspended for the last three days. The merchants went on strike against the city government’s drive of taxing livestock traders though the city government failed to counter it, leaving the meat crisis to deepen.

“The city where about 3,000 small and 6,000 big animals used to be slaughtered daily has received no fresh supply for more than a week. The city’s needs are now being fulfilled mostly with dry buffaloes or the meat being supplied from illegal slaughter houses. The prices of beef and mutton have increased from Rs150 and Rs280 to Rs220 and Rs320, respectively,” said Saleem Qureshi, the vice-president of the Meat Merchants’ Welfare Association.

He urged the government to resolve the meat crisis on a priority basis as it was affecting the business of a large number of people. “The business is being run on ad hoc basis as the government has no livestock farming policy to raise animals to fulfil the city’s demand for meat,” he said, adding that the government did nothing to end the deadlock rather it initiated another drive to fine the merchants selling meat on higher rates, which was ‘completely unjustified’.

“Thousands of traders connected with the livestock and meat businesses in the interior of Sindh and the city are finding it hard to make ends meet. But the government has done nothing to alleviate their sufferings by ending the deadlock over the taxation issue during the past nine days. However, it has swiftly started penalising the merchants for selling meat at higher rates,” Mr Qureshi added. About any positive outcome of the parleys being held with the government, the livestock traders said they were told by the EDO Agriculture that a summary prepared in this respect would be put before the city nazim, who arrived here on Monday after his visit to the United States.

However, they resented what they described as ‘a clever strategic move’ to counter the expected media criticism against the administration for an ‘unknown, unbranded’ vaccine at the entry points of Karachi.

“The contractors hired by the city government have stopped vaccination of animals after the provincial authorities reportedly took notice of the situation. Yet they continued to charge traders Rs50 in the name of a medical check-up,” said Abdul Lateef Qureshi of the Livestock Traders Welfare Association.

He said the city government had recently amended the Animals’ (Registration, Sale and Control) Bylaws 2007. Under the amended bylaws, all animals being brought into Karachi would have to undergo a medical check-up. For the examination of every animal, traders were being charged Rs50, he said, alleging that the strategy was adopted to divert media attention.

“This is a clear violation of the court order given last year, which states that the government must depute its own technical staff at the (city’s) entry points to issue a health certificate after the vaccination (of an animal). The bylaws also require the issuance of a health certificate for a medical check-up,” he said.