Home ›› 16 Jun 2022 ›› Back
Riding on the growing pet culture in Bangladesh, the business of pet clinics in the private sector is thriving across the country, especially in the capital city and the port city of Chattogram.
Just five years ago, there were hardly five to six treatment facilities for pet animals in Dhaka but now there are more than 50 such clinics in the private sector and they are doing business well providing consultancy, surgery and delivering medicine, pet food, and accessories, said people at the Livestock Department.
Most of the pet hospitals are established in upmarket areas of Dhaka such as Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Bashundhara, Dhanmondi, and Uttara where keeping pets is a common culture. Pet clinics also are there in middle-class dominated Mirpur and Khilgaon areas.
Though pet hospitals are mushrooming, very few seem to be interested in taking approval from the Bangladesh Veterinary Council.
Gopal Chandra Bishwas, acting register of the Bangladesh Veterinary Council, told The Business Post that though pet clinics increased ten times compared to five years back, the council got hardly 21 applications seeking recognition of the clinics.
People at the Department of Livestock said nearly 100 private pet hospitals are now running across Bangladesh and most of them are in divisional headquarters.
Esem Jahan Shammi is now operating the ‘Gulshan Pet Clinic and Ayesha Super Store’ which was established by his father in 1996.
After the demise of her father, Shammi and her mother took the responsibility for the clinic and superstore, said Shammi.
“Now, I have a 12-member staff including four doctors. At least five pet lovers come to my hospital every day with their pets,” she said.
Shammi also delivers various pet food, accessories (such as nail cutters, perfume, shampoo, and wet tissue) and medicine across the country. Their average monthly transaction is around Tk 6 lakh including the online sales and hospital service.
Pet clinics are now one of the growing businesses. Almost every locality in Dhaka now has a pet care hospital which was very rare in the past, she said.
Most of the houses in Dhaka now have at least a pet animal and it creates demand for pet clinics across the city resulting in a boom in such clinics, she added.
Representatives of almost all the drug manufacturers crowd Shammi’s pet hospital and she also provides customers with foreign medicine on demand.
Afzal Khan is well known as an animal rescuer. Now, he runs a pet care hospital – Robin Hood Care at Khilgaon. He established his hospital nearly 1 year and a half. He told to The Business Post that he can earn around Tk 2 lakh through the hospital a month and spend the amount on buying medicine and maintaining the cost of free rescue operations. “My hospital remains open round the clock,” he said adding that around 20- 25 pet lovers go to his hospital for taking necessary health services for their pets.
Md Rakibul Haque is the founder of ‘Paw Life Care’. The organisation has two branches in Lalmatia and Mirpur. The monthly turnover from the two units is around 2.5 lakh.
“We are not taking any profit from the clinics. We spend all the money for the betterment and development of Paw Life Care. It is a non-profitable organisation,” said Rakibul.
Among the private pet clinics Gulshan Pet Clinic, Vet & Pet Care, Care For Paws, Fatema Manjeel Animal Hospital, and Obhoyaronno of Bangladesh Animal Welfare Foundation are doing business well, said people involved.
Changing lifestyles and increasing the number of rich and middle-class people and an aggressive expansion of nuclear families boost the pet culture in the country, said social analysts.
Dr Md Luthfor Rahman, a veterinary surgeon at the Central Veterinary Hospital in Dhaka, said, “A good number of pet hospitals are established now and they are doing business well.”
