Rawhide merchants in Chittagong have achieved their target of procuring as many as 500,000 pieces of rawhide – including cow, buffalo, and goat – from all over the district despite price inflation by seasonal traders not following price guidelines.
During a visit to the city's Aturar Depo area, this reporter saw merchants busy processing the rawhide they had collected from different parts of Chittagong.
They alleged that they had to procure rawhide at prices higher than the price set by local tanners.
"Seasonal traders are to blame for the rise in the prices of skin. We had decided to purchase each skin at Tk400-600 this Eid, but we had to pay Tk700-1000 instead," said Md Rafique, a rawhide merchant of Aturar Depo.
This season, tanners had jointly decided to buy salted cow and buffalo rawhide at Tk45-50 per square foot in Dhaka, and Tk35-40 outside the capital. Additionally, for castrated goat skin, the countrywide rate was fixed at Tk18-20 per square feet, while the price of the salted skin of un-castrated goat was set at Tk13-15.
These traders also said they had to sprinkle 8-9kg salt over a piece of cowhide and 1-1.5kg salt over a piece of goatskin.
Around 20,000-25,000 people are directly or indirectly involved with the rawhide business in the Chittagong region.
Muslim Uddin, former president of Chittagong Rawhide Warehouse Traders’ Cooperative Association Ltd told the Dhaka Tribune that they achieved their target of procuring 500,000 skins.
