KATHMANDU, Oct 12: The National Food Corporation (NFC) has fixed the prices for live goats and mountain goats at Rs 710 and Rs 510 per kg respectively.
The prices have been fixed by adding transport cost and local taxes to the actual cost of the animals, according to the NFC.
Last year, the price per kilo for mountain goat was Rs 675 and Rs 455 for goat.
NFC starts selling goats for Dashain
The goats were and mountain goats brought from various parts of the country will be sold from the NFC’s Thapathali depot from Friday. The mountain goats were brought from Mustang district and goats from Makawanpur district.
The NFC plans to sell 1,000 mountain goats and 1,000 goats this Dashain. “Of the total 1,000 mountain goats meant for Kathmandu, only 500 have arrived. Similarly, out of the 1,000 goats, only 200 have arrived,” said NFC spokesperson Shankar Sapkota.
The price fixed by the NFC is lower than the market price.
Nepal Livestock Traders Association is selling mountain goats at Rs 750 per kg whereas price of Nepali goats varies between Rs 515 to Rs 530 and Indian goats sell at Rs 550 per kg, according to Deepak Thapa, ex-chairman of association.
The price of Indian goat has increased due to import taxes, according to the traders. Livestock traders have already sold more than 4000 goats so far and many of them were sold to local meat shops, according to Thapa.
Thapa said Nepali goats were brought from Banke, Bardiya, Salyan, Dang, Jajarkot, Surkhet, Janakpur, Udayapur, Nuwakot and Ramechhap districts while mountain goats have been brought from Mustang and also from Tibet. Indian goats were brought from Bahraich, Lucknow, Kanpur and Gorakhpur.
Officials claimed all imported goats were examined by vets before importing them to Nepal.
Thapa meanwhile blamed the ‘multiple taxes’ imposed on livestock imports for the higher prices.
