KHULNA, July 30, 2020 (BSS) -With only some few hours in hand, the digital cattle markets in Khulna ARE getting momentum ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, the second largest festival of the Muslims.
The two digital markets ‘Qurbani Hat Khulna’ and ‘KCC online cattle haat’ already have sold at least 450 sacrificial animals in the city till today’s noon. Among them 215 were sold from ‘Qurbani Hat Khulna’ and 235 were sold from ‘KCC online cattle haat’, sources said.
Khulna District Administration in co-operation with the District Livestock office have started the activities of ‘Qurbani Hat Khulna’ through mobile app along with its website (qurbanihatkhulna.com) from July 8 while the KCC have launched online cattle haat (kcchaat.com) from July 25 due to Covid-19 outbreak.
Talking to BSS today, District Livestock Officer S.M Awal Haque, said “A total of 215 sacrificial animals worth around Taka 4 crore were sold till today’s noon from Qurbani Hat Khulna. We are getting positive responses from the customers.”
“We are trying our best to provide satisfying service and so far, we have accomplished a lot,” he said.
“If we could manage a bit more time, this initiative could have been a great success,” he said, adding that the digitalization system especially Union Digital Centers (UDC) is playing a vital role to make this initiative successful.
Already a good number of sacrificial animals are registered into this platform with their age, weight and sellers contact. Animals from different upazilas of Khulna district are getting registered every day, he said.
He, however, said at least 4,250 sacrificial animals including 350 goats and sheep are ready till today to be sold both online and traditional cattle markets in Khulna.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Khulna Ziaur Rahman told the correspondent, “Government officials from different upazillas of the district are helping the farmers to register their animals. Till now we are satisfied with the responses.”
On the other hand, the traditional cattle market of Khulna city run by KCC has also started their online service for the very first time.
In this regard, executive engineer (Electric) of KCC who is also a member of KCC cattle market managing committee zahid Hossain sheikh told BSS today, “We have started our service very recently and so far, we have sold 235 animals through online where else another 329 animals were sold physically in the Zoraget cattle market (haat).
Basically, the animals coming to the Zoraget cattle market for sell are being put up on the KCC’s online cattle market and the KCC administration is helping deliberately to make this process successful,” he added.
Both of the organizers have plans to extend this service in the future if these digital cattle haats are successful.
With an aim to reduce the number of people coming to buy sacrificial animals during coronavirus pandemic, these market places were introduced by the initiative of Khulna district administration, Khulna Livestock Department and Khulna City Corporation.