Tannery owners fear that rawhides might be smuggled to neighbouring countries, as they are yet to procure even half the rawhides produced on Eid-ul-Azha this year compared to their purchases last year.  Besides, middlemen, seasonal traders and politically influential groups are said to be forcing people to sell rawhides between Tk. 300 and Tk. 500 per piece  without any regard for the prices fixed by the government.

Against this backdrop, leaders of the Bangladesh Tanners’ Association (BTA) yesterday demanded greater vigilance by the government in border areas for a month to prevent any smuggling of rawhides from the country. “We've not been able to purchase even 25 lakh pieces of rawhides in the last couple of days. We bought 50 lakh pieces of rawhides last year during the same period,” BTA vice-chairman Haji Eliasur Rahman (Babul) told The Independent yesterday.

Normally, tannery owners bought about 50 lakh pieces of rawhides on Eid day and the day after, he said. “We've already request the government, including the BGB, to keep an eye in the border area to prevent the smuggling of rawhides,” he added.

Haji Eliasur Rahman, who is also the owner of Arab Tannery (Pvt) Limited, said he usually bought 6,000 pieces of rawhides on Eid day and the day after. However, he managed to get only 1,500 pieces this year.

When asked about the low prices, the BTA vice-chairman said: “There is no fixed rate of Qurbani rawhides. Nobody at the local level bothers about the price fixed by the government. Local-level buyers don’t bother about the minister or the government’s directives in matters of procuring such rawhides.”

Tannery owners were buying rawhides at prices between Tk 1,300 and Tk 1,800 per piece, but they had no control on local traders, he said in reply to a query.

“No matter which party is in power, their people buy rawhides forcibly at low prices,” he added. Local traders had stocked rawhides after treating them with salt, which could be another reason for the low count of rawhides entering the capital, he explained.

Besides, many tannery owners lacked cash to buy rawhides, as they were spending larger amounts on the relocation of their factories to Savar from the city’s Hazaribagh, he said.

“We are selling hides at lower prices in the international market. International buyers do not often offer reasonable rates. So, we're forced to sell hides by incurring losses,” he added.

He further said that only 67 factories out of 155 had started production at the Savar tannery village.  The BTA had earlier set a target to procure 80 lakh rawhides from this Eid-ul-Azha season—the peak period to buy rawhides.

 Earlier, the commerce ministry had fixed the price of cowhide at Tk. 50–55 per square feet within Dhaka and Tk. 40–45 outside Dhaka. The price was set at Tk. 20–22 for goats.

 According to the BTA, about 22 crore square feet of rawhide is collected annually. Of that, 64.83 per cent comes from cows, 31.82 per cent from goats, 2.25 per cent from buffaloes, and 1.2 per cent from sheep.