ARAKU (VISAKHAPATNAM DISTRICT): Sale of bamboo chicken, a popular delicacy made traditionally using bamboo sticks at tourist spots of the tribal areas in Visakhapatnam district, is hit hard due to demonetisation.
The sale of this must-relish dish of the Eastern Ghats has plummeted since the Centre’s announcement three weeks ago.
The delicacy is available at the 100-odd stalls that have come up here and at Borra Caves, Chaparai and Katiki waterfalls, Anantagiri, Tyda, and other areas in the district.
Says Anjali, 50, who sells bamboo chicken and barbeque chicken near the Tribal Museum here: “As tourists are facing currency problem and sellers like me have no idea on how to operate swiping machines, the sales have come down drastically.”
“Almost three-fourth of my business has been affected as tourists are offering Rs.2,000 notes and we don’t have change. We don’t have the capacity to operate swiping machines,” she told The Hindu.
Bamboo chicken is prepared by stuffing poultry chicken meat with locally available herbs, salt, and chilli powder without oil in the bamboo stalk. It is cooked on firewood by blocking both ends of the bamboo stalk with plantain leaf. The stalk, mostly procured from bordering Odisha, turns into a cylindrical container.
“The taste is yummy. But we are facing change problem,” says Seemantini Tagore, a tourist from Burdhwan of Kolkata.
A B.Tech student from Kakinada, K. Kamesh, who came here along with his friends, says that with great difficulty they could obtain change for Rs.2,000 from a hotel and relish the delicacy.
Bamboo chicken, on an average, costs Rs.500 per kg.
“I have been selling bamboo chicken and kebabs for the last four years. The A.P. Tourism bus stops near my shop. I sell 10 kg per day. The sales go up to 40 kg during weekends when all hotels are full with tourists,” says Sukuru Lakshmi, who owns a chicken stall.
The dish is most sought-after by the tourists from Odisha and West Bengal, who throng the hill resorts during November, December and January – the peak tourist season when temperatures fall to single digit.
