Home ›› 17 Jul 2021 ›› News
Staff Correspondent
A total of 2,38,068 sacrificial animals have already been sold through online platforms, from July 2 and July 15, across the country ahead of Eid-ul-Azha celebrations.
According to the Department of Livestock Services (DLS), online platforms sold sacrificial animals worth Tk 1,665 crore in the last 14 days.
There are around 1,768 online platforms selling sacrificial animal and of them, 602 are run by the government while the rest are administered by private entrepreneurs.
At the same time, sellers posted a staggering 15,93,692 sales posts for sacrificial animals on online platforms, DLS data showed.
Talking to The Business Post, DLS Director (Expansion) Debashis Das said, “Sales of sacrificial animals through online platforms started last year and some 87,000 cattle were sold during the period. This year, sales of sacrificial animals online has exceeded our expectation and we hope that the sales will increase further in the coming days.”
He said, on July 15 alone, some 1,38,032 sacrificial animals were listed on online platforms and 24,075 of them, worth Tk 153 crore, were sold.
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock recommended running traditional cattle market from July 15 to July 20 maintaining health safety guidelines.
Debashis also predicted that online sale of sacrificial animals might fall a bit as traditional cattle markets will start operating from July 15.
On Thursday, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said that online sales of sacrificial animals could reach 7 lakh this year, with more and more people preferring the virtual way of buying amid Covid-19.
“I think the sales of animals could touch 5-7 lakh this year. Last year, the figure was about 1 lakh,” he said at a webinar on the “Impact of E-commerce on SMEs” held from Dhaka.
According to DLS, Bangladesh currently has a stock of some 1,19,16,765 sacrificial animals for the Eid-ul-Asha. Of the animals, 45,47,000 are cow and buffalo, 73,65, 000 are goat and sheep and 4,765 others animals.
Sharing his own experience of buying a cow through an online platform during Eid last year, the minister said that initially there were some problems with the virtual trading process, “but they have been resolved in consultation with Bangladesh Bank.” In 2020, there were 1,18,97,500 sacrificial animals in stock and of them, 94,50,263 animals were sacrificed.
