Prices of sheep shoot up ahead of Bakrid

Arrangements being made at eidgahs for Eid-ul-Adha prayers

Those buying animals for the annual ritual sacrifice have to shell out larger sums of money with traders increasing prices between ₹ 2,000 and ₹ 6,000 per sheep, ahead of Eid-ul-Adha, popularly known as Bakrid. The festival is being celebrated on Wednesday. A night before Bakrid, a large number of people were seen trying to strike a bargain with traders at the seasonal sheep markets in Mehdipatnam, Toli Chowki, Balapur, and Jiaguda, among others areas. These areas witnessed heavy activity with cattle arriving from several parts of Telangana, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. “Traders have been claiming that the increase in diesel prices have hit them and thus, there is a spike in prices. But increasing the price by ₹ 2,000 or ₹ 3,000 per sheep seems strange as they bring large number of animals into the city, and the increase in transportation cost evens out to a large extent. I bought a pair from the Balapur market for ₹ 22,000. This is around ₹ 4,000 more than what I had paid last year for sheep of approximately similar size,” said S.A. Raheem, a resident of Saidabad.