Demonetisation, which has been adversely impacting several businesses, has forced the non-vegetarians to cut down on their special menus and the fall in demand pushed the markets into a lull even after the Karthika Masam .
The cash crunch and the ‘change’ issue hit sales of meat and fish at the Sunday markets and meat shops which transact brisk business after the end of the festivities.
During the festive season, meat sales decrease by at least 30 per cent and the ongoing currency issue has only compounded the woes of traders and retailers.
Poultry traders who claimed almost a 50 per cent drop in business for the last four weeks saw no respite from the crisis.
“Last two Sundays we witnessed a drop in sales and our purchasing capacity too came down due to the cash crunch. We expected the situation to get better as cash flow increased a bit but it did not. Also, the prices of chicken and mutton came down due to this,” said A. Nagendra, owner of a meat shop.
With no rotation of the old notes and the Rs.100 notes, retailers are faced with the burden of making payments in Rs. 2000 notes.
“Generally during the Karthika Masam, consumption of mutton and other non-vegetarian stuff comes down by at least 20 per cent. The cash crunch might have caused another 20 per cent decline in sales considering the amount of livestock brought for approval and testing at the slaughter house in the past couple of weeks,” said an official of the VMC’s slaughter house.
At the Mahanti Chicken and Fish Market at Besant Road, the movement of buyers picked up but that did not help increase in sales.
“The lack of change has affected the transactions. We are not able to give change to customers who generally buy stock worth a few hundreds. Even if a couple of transactions go well, the problem starts again when we run out of small notes,” said a retailer.
Due to poor sales, the chicken and mutton prices came down to Rs.140 and Rs. 350 per kilo respectively.
