Meat vendors in Zhemgang are accusing the Bhutan Livestock Development Corporation (BLDC) of snatching their businesses. They say their business has been affected after the BLDC started doing business directly from the capital capturing all the major consumers in Zhemgang. The cooperation supplies meat to schools and hospitals in the district.
These local meat vendors in Zhemgang hardly sell a few kilograms of meat products in a day. There are six meat vendors in the district.
Some of them said they are unhappy with the BLDC’s marketing approach. They said although the sales outlet in the district is closed, BLDC directly supplies products to schools from Thimphu.
“In other districts such as Thimphu and bigger towns, BLDC did not supply meat directly or do not have sales outlets like here. Our business wasn’t doing well already given the limited population size and the corporation’s business is making it worse for us to thrive,” said Ugyen Dorji, a meat vendor.
“Before we used to supply meat to the schools in the district but now, the corporation has captured our business and we are facing a problem. On top of that, with a small population, we could hardly sell the produce. And BLDC is not doing us any good,” said Kinga Lama Tamang, a meat vendor.
“It has affected our business a lot. In the past, it used to be us supplying meat to the schools which are now taken over by the BLDC. Because of the corporation, our business shrunk by almost 80 per cent,” said Laxmi Prasad, a meat vendor.
On the other hand, the BLDC office in Thimphu said they are supplying dairy products including meat to the schools as per the decision endorsed by the Cabinet in 2019.
The corporation is one of the stakeholders in the school feeding and nutrition programmes and hospital feeding programmes. It is entrusted to supply local livestock products to schools where farmers’ groups and cooperatives are either not interested or not in a position to supply.
In a month, BLDC supplies more than 750 kilograms of meat and 30 cartons of eggs to 13 schools in Zhemgang.
BLDC official added that the livestock products supplied to schools are generally locally aggregated and the rates are determined for one academic year irrespective of price fluctuation in the market.
BLDC started supplying livestock products to schools in 2021.
Pema Samdrup, Zhemgang
Edited by Phub Gyem
