Shell shocked: Protests over egg price rocks NECC

he plan hatched by the poultry farmers to stage a protest in front of the National Egg Coordination committee Zonal office at Namakkal came out ugly for the NECC.

NAMAKKAL: The plan hatched by the poultry farmers to stage a protest in front of the National Egg Coordination committee Zonal office at Namakkal came out ugly for the NECC as for the past few days the office is shut down by the protestors.

Among the 23 zones in India, Namakkal NECC including Pondicherry and Kerala is the highest zone for egg production with 1100 poultry farms giving turnover of 4 crores egg a day. However, since February 5, the NECC zonal office is shut down and the daily activities like fixation of egg price are carried out temporarily at the Zonal Chairman's house. The poultry farmers took to the streets after the gradual decrease in the egg price.

On November 1, 2019, NECC announced to fix the egg price daily compared to earlier fixation for 3 days (Monday, Thursday and Saturday). This announcement created confusion among the members of the Tamilnadu Poultry Farmers Association, TamilNadu Poultry Farmers Federation and Namakkal Egg Producers Association, causing a bad impact on poultry farmers. Despite NECC being the sole authority in fixing the egg price, most of the farmers did not obey the NECC order, following the difference in opinion among the association members. 

Though recently Namakkal NECC Zonal Chairman P Selvaraj asserted in his press release that no poultry farmer needs to worry about the egg movement and price, as they have resumed the three days policy, 30 paise was reduced, leading to farmers' protest.

In this scenario, Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Association president cum Namakkal MP A K P Chinraj assured that he should change the zonal chairman with the support of local committee members to bring in peace.

Speaking to TNIE, the MP alerted the four local committees that majority would call upon re-election in the Namakkal NECC.

He added that in spite of giving several opinions to NECC in support of three days egg price fixation in the welfare of Poultry farmers, the zonal chairman did not lend his ear at all which in turn led to the closure.

"As far as business promotion is concerned, retailers play a key role. A few poultry farmers blamed them and kindled this fight. NECC should come forward to organise a meeting calling all poultry farmers and retailers for a permanent solution," he suggested.

 While the MP is ready to participate in the meeting, he asked if the NECC chairman attend the meeting

NECC chairman P Selvaraj told TNIE, "Since the NECC office had been shut down by a few poultry farmers, we have been doing the regular activities from my home. We did not plan anything about the ongoing issue. On Monday, we will decide the future course of action."  

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