The Hindu Business Line : Egg price set to go up in TN

WITH the Department of Social Welfare gearing for the resumption of supply of table eggs to school children under the noon meal scheme, the wholesale egg price in the State is poised to further firm up towards this week.

The farm-gate egg price which kept hovering at Rs 1.25 a piece till two weeks ago, climbed up to close at Rs 1.35 for the week-end on Saturday.

The egg market may see further surge in the wholesale price when it opens tomorrow. Egg trade sources said that the wholesale price will see another 5 paise rise to touch Rs 1.40.

The price surge is seen in view of the move by the respective district administration to set in motion the egg procurement system in place in the last few days. Trade sources told Business Line that the egg suppliers had been asked to send their supplies to the noon meal centres by June 28 to enable distribution by the first week of July to the beneficiary students.

Initially, the egg trade is expected to offer supplies on quotation basis to the department, the nodal agency for the noon meal scheme administration. In all likelihood, the due tender process for awarding the annual contract for noon-meal scheme egg supply would be finalised by August-end.

The offtake of egg under the scheme is expected to be some 70 lakh pieces per week going by the hitherto followed pattern of distribution of eggs to students once a week. This would roughly mean that the daily offtake from the market would be ten lakh eggs or some 10 per cent of the State's estimated table egg production of ten million eggs a day.

The layer egg trade sources, however, feel that the uptrend seen in the wholesale price may be halted by July when fishing in the Kerala coastal areas would start. This may partly rob the sheen in wholesale egg price. In the event of the wholesale egg price touching Rs 1.40, the retail egg price would have to be pegged higher at Rs 1.60 or so per egg, which may also trigger resistance from the consumers.

However, the heartening trend for poultry farmers and the wholesalers is that considering the sustained pace of table egg exports from Tamil Nadu, the farm-gate egg price would continue to remain firm over the next few weeks, the sources added.