As the Margsheesh season nears, beginning November 16, poultry traders say the sale of chicken has increased over the last few days. The reason they cite is that once the Margsheesh begins, most families abstain from meat.

Traders say they expect sales to be good for another week, before it reduces drastically from mid November. During the shravan season, the Maharashtrian community abstains from cooking meat, bringing down meat sales drastically. “This trend of abstinence during Margsheesh has caught on over the last 3-4 years. Earlier, it was only during Shravan that families abstained from eating meat. Now, during Marghseesh also, Maharashtrian women fast and do not cook meat,” said Rajeev Bismillah, a poultry trader.

Traders say to make up for the loss in the coming weeks, they will supply meat to hotels. “This weekend, the sales have increased by 25 per cent. Perhaps people want to have as much meat as possible now. Next weekend, we expect sales to be higher, just before the Margsheesh season sets in,” said Saeed Shaikh Inamdar of Inamdar poultry Private limited.

At present, chicken is selling at Rs 100 per kg, while it was only around Rs 80 per kg two weeks ago, but it is likely to drop back to Rs 80 in the run up to Margsheesh, traders say. The price of live birds has dropped to Rs 40 from Rs 50.

Pune consumes over 50 tonnes of chicken daily, which is expected to drop to nearly 25 tonnes next month. “A week ago, there was a little shortage, so we procured meat from Hyderabad and Sangli. During Margsheesh, we may send excess containers to Hyderabad and Sangli as well. Also, we will be tapping hotels. Though people may not cook at home, but they would go to hotels,” said Inamdar. Poultry will be back in demand after mid December.