Fowl play: At Asia’s largest mandi, traders say, ‘See for yourself’

“On an average, 150 trucks come to this place. And each truck carries nearly 2,000 chickens in around 220 crates, which are then distributed all over Delhi and NCR,” says Haji Iqbal Ahmed, 47, one of the 87 wholesale dealers at the mandi. “The trucks have to be below the safety limit of 2,000 kg,” he adds.

In front of the enclosure where Ahmed keeps his stock, there is a fenced space for chickens that go unsold for the day. It’s a short-lived freedom but compared to the hens packed inside cages on trucks, these are luckier — they have a small area where they can move around, which they do, foraging for food.

Recently, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India T S Thakur heard a PIL, by the Animal Welfare Board of India, on how hens are kept in deplorable conditions in tiny cages. Asked if he thought the space in the cages was sufficient for the chickens, Ahmed says, “Yes, see for yourself.” But the hens are tightly huddled against each other. There is no room to move or spread their wings.

The broiler variety have made their way here after being reared in poultries for 30-40 days. Once the trucks reach, labourers unload the cages and stack them up in front of godowns of wholesalers. “It takes about half-an-hour to unload a truck,” says Mohammad Mehboob, a labourer who has been working at the mandi for over 20 years and earns Rs 9 for shifting a crate.

When market rates are good, wholesalers buy chicken from poultry farmers at Rs 60 to Rs 65 per kg and sell them at the mandi for Rs 5-Rs 7 more. If demand declines, the same prices drop to Rs 40 to Rs 42 per kg.

Having travelled hours packed inside the crates, the chickens look the worse for travel. Some are already dead, and are separated from the rest and kept aside by the labourers with a swiftness taught by experience.

The dealers acknowledge that the process of catching the birds, loading, transport and unloading causes serious stress and injury to a large number of broilers, even leading to death. Heat is another fatal factor.

The hens are brought from poultries which may be in places as close as Sonipat, which is about 49 km away, or as far as Gurdaspur and Pathankot, around 300 km and 578 km away respectively. The birds are watered and fed on the way only if they are travelling for more than a day.

“Sometimes there can be as many as 50 dead birds in one truck. The numbers are high during summer,” says Ahmed. “The dead hens are later burnt by the cleaning squad,” he adds.

There are little takers for the dead flock. The wholesalers also take into account the health hazards from dead poultry.

By 5 am, with the trucks still coming in, “suppliers” queue up, with their mini-vans, cycle-vans, bikes or even bicycles. There is little time to waste, so the workers pick up two to three chickens at a time and dump them into cages balanced atop weighing machines. Once weighed, the chickens are loaded onto the suppliers’ vehicles, with workers holding the birds by their wings, sometimes as many as five together. Many of the birds get injured while being swung into vehicles.

Pointing to “the gross violation of laws in the transportation and handling of chickens,” M Ravi Kumar, secretary, Animal Welfare Board of India, says, “As people think that these animals are here to be slaughtered, they do not care about them.”

At the mandi, it’s now 7.30 am and the sun is already quite strong. A mini-van bound for Inderlok in North West Delhi is being loaded. As the frightened chickens let out loud shrieks, a rebel hen somehow manages to escape, landing on top of the cage used for weighing. Unnoticed still, it slowly hops down and hides under the mini-van. A worker, however, notices it, crawls under, and flings it into the cage again.

With the loading complete, the owner of the mini-van waters the hens with the help of a mug and bucket, before beginning the 20-km drive to Inderlok. Sometimes, pipes are used to water the chickens.

While most of the birds are supplied from here to various parts of Delhi and NCR, hens weighing nearly 1,200-1,400 gm and also around 2 kg or above are sent to the slaughterhouse at the end of the mandi. The lighter hens are cut into sizes required for tandoori dishes and the heavier ones are made boneless, which are then delivered to hotels and restaurants. Chickens weighing around 1,500 gm to 1,700 gm are sold alive and are distributed to the chicken shops.

“As many as 75,000 chickens are slaughtered here every day. The process is done manually, so the price of the end-product is cheaper than those slaughtered by machines,” says wholesaler Md Naushad Qureshi, 42. “This is the largest mandi in Asia and we offer reasonable rates to consumers. But many trucks illegally supply hens to different places in Delhi,” he adds.

His brother Nazeem Qureshi, 30, says, “The government suffers because of this illegal trade, but we too incur losses. We have licences to carry on our trade and pay taxes, but illegal businessmen keep all the money.”

Bird flu has also hit the trade. “Every time there are rumours of an outbreak, prices hit a low. During this period, the number of trucks coming to the mandi even goes up to 300 per day as the poultry farmers try to get rid of their stock. Also during the Hindu holy month of Shravan, sales diminish,” says wholesale dealer Mohammad Furqan, 40.

Qureshi senior believes bird flu is nothing but “rumours”.

He adds that currently, more trucks are coming to the mandi due to the unrest and curfew in Jammu and Kashmir. Trucks from Punjab that were supposed to go to the Valley are now being diverted to this mandi.

By noon, silence has fallen on the premises. Only a few trucks are still around, apart from the handful of people wrapping up their work. The evidence of the cacophony of a few hours ago lingers only in the form of an overpowering stench and some broken, muddied feathers.