15,000 rawhides dumped in Chattogram
City corporation cleaners in Chattogram have dumped about 15,000 rawhide which were unsold or not preserved by the stockists after Eid-ul-Azha.
Though the stockists say the city and rural traders had about 400,000 skins, many allege that they failed to sell the skins after bringing these to the city from upazilas.
The Aturar depot in Chattogram is busy as skins began to arrive since the animal sacrifice started on Saturday. On arrival, the skins treated with salt throughout the night. Even so, a huge amount of rawhide was dumped on Hathazari road in Muradpur on Sunday morning.
Some of the skins were drenched in the rain the night before. Many traders from the upazila alleged though they hoped to sell the skins at a fair price to the stockists, they failed to do so. The wholesalers allegedly did not buy many skins saying they had rotted.
The city corporation workers recovered some 8,000 rotted skins from Hathazari road and disposed of these. More skins were dumped after being recovered from Chowmohani, Patharghata and Chamrar Gudam.
Some skins from the upazilas were decomposed due to delay of the stockists to preserve them, said Md. Morshedul Alam, city corporation deputy cleaning officer. Some 5,000 rawhides rotted at Sunnia Ahammadia Madrasa premises as the stockists bought them but failed to apply salt in time due to worker crisis.
Morshed said some 15,000 skins rotted this way.
Mayor AJM Nasir Uddin sought explanation from the stockists regarding decay of the skins. Earlier, in the morning, the stockists obstructed the city corporation workers while they attempted to remove the rotten skins. The traders claimed they had bought the skins. The workers, however, picked these up from the road and carried away on vehicles.
Regarding the decay of skins, Mahbub Alam, convenor of Chattogram Rawhide Warehouse Traders Cooperative Association, said some skins from upazila were already rotten and that’s why could not be bought. The cleaning workers dumped one or two thousand rotten skins. He claimed skins were not rotten like the previous year as animal sacrifices were less.
He said total number of collected skins did not exceed 400,000.
According to the traders, many people sacrificed goats instead of cows due to coronavirus. Collection was less and prices too were low due to this.
There are about 250 stockists in Chattogram from whom tannery owners from Dhaka buy the processed hides.
Rawhides did not rot that much this year as the management was good, said Muslim Uddin, former president of Rawhide Warehouse Traders Cooperative Association.