Kerala: Poultry merchants plan coops to beat profiteering by wholesalers

ALAPPUZHA: The chicken merchants are planning to set up cooperative societies to end the profiteering by wholesalers following the implementation of GST which has eliminated the 14.5 percent value-added tax on the poultry sector. The cooperatives will help the state become self-sufficient in terms of poultry meat production, according to the merchants. The prices of poultry products have not come down in spite of GST. The merchants blame the Tamil Nadu-based wholesalers for creating an artificial price hike. Currently, the merchant sell a kilo of meat for Rs150.

N.K. Nazeer, general secretary, All-Kerala Poultry Federation, said that the cooperatives of integrators would be formed on the Milma model at the grassroots level. Such societies will help break the monopoly in chicken trade. Many banks have offered finance to such societies, he said. After the GST was introduced, the price of a chickling has come down from Rs. 64.50 to Rs. 30. But the traders in Tamil Nadu are reluctant to cut the price. The suppliers have hiked the price by Rs. 20 per bird. "The cooperative societies can make us self-sufficient and provide us quality meat at a reasonable rate," he said. Kerala, with a per capita consumption of 10.8 kg poultry meat, consumes 875 tonnes per day against a production of 321 tonnes.