Eid means business
Bakr-Eid means business, well for goat traders it does. In the run up to Eid al-Adha, goat-sellers from as far as Rajasthan converged to the small Punjab town of Malerkotla and sold one lakh of the four-legged animals and raked in roughly Rs 15 crore.
Bakr-Eid means business, well for goat traders it does. In the run up to Eid al-Adha, goat-sellers from as far as Rajasthan converged to the small Punjab town of Malerkotla and sold one lakh of the four-legged animals and raked in roughly Rs 15 crore.
The sale of goats this year has been better than last year and, as per figures, 200 goat sellers from Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, camped in the town's livestock market over the past fortnight. 'Desi' goats brought from different places of the state remained in demand as each goat was being sold between Rs 60,000 and 80,000.
The other varieties of goat that attracted customers were Barbari, Amritsari, Mewati, Totapuri, Kashmiri and Himachali. The range of the above categories varied from Rs 2,500 to Rs 50,000.
In 2011, a Rajasthani goat was sold for Rs 1.25 lakh. Municipal Council president Sardar Mohammad Dara said the response was better than last this time as, this year, Muslims from different parts of the state had visited the town for the purchase of goats.
Mohammad Abdul, a trader from Saharanapur said he had come with 200 goats two week ago and managed to sell the stock in a few days.
"Only an adult and healthy goat having two teeth is fit for sacrifice. Secondly, they had good price for healthy goats with heavy horns. Besides, a goat with any disease is disallowed from being sacrificed," he said.