Poultry agents show signs of weariness

Late this evening, roughly one third of the around 2,000 middlemen at the wholesale Ghazipur chicken market in East Delhi appeared to be relenting.

Chicken-starved Delhiites — a scant 35,000 birds, against a demand of around 1.5 lakh, made it to the makeshift outlets today — may have had reason to suspect the authenticity of their tikkas and tandooris from their favourite barbeque outlets over the last week. Many were at a loss to understand the mechanics of the current artificial scarcity of poultry products.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the middlemen’s effective cartel has been able to dictate terms to the farmers. The Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board, which ought to have acted six years ago and ensured the birds were bought by weight by the commission agents, stepped in only last month, and that too after arbitration by the Public Grievances Commission.

Over the last two days, poultry farmers have hawked their produce through four makeshift outlets in the city. Stray attempts at intimidating them partly succeeded. For the second day, the local MLA and the Delhi police forced the farmers to close shop at Alipur near the Haryana border. But the farmers went across the border and continued selling their stock.

The Poultry Association of India and the Delhi Poultry Commission Agents Association blamed Karan Singh Tanwar, administrator of the Fish, Poultry and Egg Market Committee — which oversees business in Ghazipur — for the deadlock. Tanwar, who is also the BJP MLA fron Delhi Cantt, has reportedly gone underground and is refusing to meet representatives from both sides to resolve the dispute. Express Newsline also failed to contact him despite repeated attempts. “A third force has instigated the strike,” said Noor Elahi, owner of the Azad Hind Poultry Firm in Ghazipur, “because they want to destroy the market in Delhi”.

He claims he has evidence that Tanwar has turned a blind eye to the pilferage of a large portion of the one per cent of daily sales at Ghazipur, which is supposed to be routed to the Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board’s (DAMB) coffers. “Records are altered in a such a way that only Rs 10,000-Rs12,000 is earmarked as (DAMB) allocation, whereas the actual amount is close to Rs one lakh. Moreover, the figures of the number of tempos carrying chicken, and enetring Ghazipur, is fudged at the gate itself,” alleged Elahi.

He makes no bones about his tiff with Tanwar who reportedly tried his best to ensure that he did no get a licence to trade in chicken, despite being allocated a shop in Ghazipur. It was only after a court order that he could do business.