The Exhibition Advisory Committee (EAC), the think-tank behind the successful Poultry India exhibition each year, organized its first online meeting on May 17, 2020. This meeting was attended by the EAC team comprising; Mr.KG Anand, Mr.Bahadur Ali, Mr.OP Singh, Mr.Sunderrajan, Dr.Ranjeeth Reddy (Member of Parliament), Mr.Ram Reddy, Mr.Raghav Rao, Mr. Suresh Chitturi, Mr.SB Shave, Mr. C Vasanth kumar, Mr.Raghvendra Joshi, Mr.Shushant Roy, Mr.Navin Kumar, Dr.AS Ranade, Mr.NC Maity, Dr.DK Dey, Dr.PK Shukla, Mr.Milind Limaye, Mr.Naveen Pashuparthi and Mr.B S Rana.
The members of Indian Poultry Equipment Manufacturers Association {IPEMA) were also present in the online meeting which included Mr.Chakradhar Rao (President-Indian Poultry Equipment Manufacturers Association), Mr. Anil Dhumal, Mr. Harish Garware, Mr.Shirish Dhopeshwar, Mr.Uday Singh, Mrs.Sandhya Rani and Mr.Rajesh Sethi. The IPEMA is the organizing arm of Poultry India Exhibition series since its inception.
Mr. Anil Dhumal welcomed all the members of EAC and IPEMA at the Web meeting. He initiated the proceedings of the meeting and coordinated with the members. He said at present the Indian poultry industry is fighting for survival. He blamed the social media and the likes for disseminating the fake news that poultry could also be a carrier of Corona Virus and thus spelling doom for this industry. He said the damage has already been done and now our focus should be to initiate the remedial measures for the benefit of Indian poultry industry.
He said we are all going through a critical time which was never expected by any of us. He said we have to adapt to new situation and work culture in life right now. He said we must stand united and must understand what we need from the government. He said we must device our own strategy and become self dependent and not rely on others for our existence. He invited Mr.Chakradhar Rao to present his views on Poultry India 2020.
Mr.Chakradhar Rao, welcomed all the members present at the meeting. He said we need to decide whether we need to downscale or cancel the show. He said most of the people have opined to postpone the Poultry India 2020 show to 2021.
Apart from this, the colossal devastation of the Indian poultry industry was discussed. The members were shocked not to see any mention of poultry in the special revival package Rs 20 lakh Crore corpus. The government should strictly bracket the poultry industry within agriculture ministry pan India and extend all benefits to poultry as being given to agriculture sector. There should be no confusing duality on the status of poultry and its clear demarcation pan India.
The members discussed about the subdued presence and pursuance of poultry matters by the Indian poultry industry. It was stated that none of the associations could act as pressure groups to persuade the government to take effective decisions to favour the poultry industry.
Dr.PK Shukla suggested that there should be formal survey of the estimated loss to Indian poultry and that how it can be rescued. He said many more suggestions have been given to the government to include poultry in the MSME package wherever the turnover is less than 50 crores.
Dr.Ranjeeth Reddy said if the industry is doing good, why should we downscale it, you can ask the poultry farmers to come? He said when the scene is sobad we cannot goahead. He said without a revival package it will be difficult for the industry to recover soon.
Some members stated that we have been regularly organizing this event every year, so we can give it a break for one year. Members has apprehensions that if we don’t organize this show, someone else will, even if it is a failure because they are working against Poultry India. Mr.Dhumal said that we can conduct the Knowledge Day Seminar and get together and discuss the situation further.
It was opined that all the international shows are also cancelled and people don’t want to take the risk of travelling and attending exhibitions and besides this, as the economy is also in bad shape for exhibitors to participate in it. It was also suggested that on the lines of other webinars being organized, we too can organize the Knowledge Day Seminar online. Some members suggested that we need not feel insecure that other people will organize Poultry India kind of show and we alone can do it on this scale because all the big names of this industry is with us.
Some members suggested that even organizing Knowledge Day is not feasible due to travel restrictions and various other reasons for which people can’t make up to the venue. Considering the social distancing, how can we allow 1500 people to assemble in one hall, opined some members? Mr.Anil Dhumal suggested that in case of strict government regulations, we can assemble the speakers at a place and conduct the seminar online and this appears feasible as there are so many companies conducting webinars on a large scale. It was decided that a call on organizing the Knowledge Day can be made in mid September or October 2020 first week. It was also brought to the notice of the members that NECC too is doing its role as the Chairperson of NECC has written to the government and look into the plight of the poultry industry.
Mr.Bahadur Ali said that it is surprising that poultry industry did not figure in the revival package probably owing to the fact that the government is not having the data of poultry production, business and employment generation in the country. He said that the government has regularly been asking for the data of various sectors within the poultry industry bu t it has not been provided to the government by this industry. He said if the government does not have the data of poultry industry, how can the revival package be declared or released? He said we must admit our faul t because all other industries provide data to the government. He said we must provide all possible data details to the government like the number of employment generated, families dependent on it and stop ranting that we alone with our efforts have developed this industry to the present level.
Mr.Sunderrajan said that we must not expect that someone will come and help us, instead we must initiate all efforts to improve the precarious situation we are in today.He said we must tune our production only according to the market demand.
Mr.Ram Reddy said that we should reduce our production. Mr.Raghvendra Joshi said that the government is not recognizing the input status of our industry and somewhere it is our failure. He said our activity and business should be recognized by the government. He said all of us should switch over to the mail and social platform like twitter and inform the finance ministry the details of our industry like how much rural employment we are generating through this industry. He said our industry was the first to be adversely affected by the rumors during the Corona virus pandemic. He said we must fight for our industry in various ways. He said the government should not have neglected us the way it has done during this pandemic.
Dr.PK Shukla said that appropriate feedback was provided to the government but felt surprised that how poultry was omitted from the revival package. He said the package is just the reframing of the budget provisions. He said we have not been allotted any relief in the name of poultry sector. He said that we have always approached the government stating ourselves as an industry but never provided the details. He said we should always release an annual survey highlighting the details of our performance like the production data, labour employment details both direct and indirect, or problems, needs,expectations etc. He said we have never highlighted the quality protein food that we are producing for fighting malnutrition and enhanced health of our citizens. He asserted that we should highlight the strength of our industry to the government. He said we must immediately inform the Prime Minister office that our sector has been omitted and if we don’t do it, such omission will reoccur in future. He said we should highlight this omission on all possible forums to make the government heard. He said we must highlight the fact that how many people and their employment have been affected. He urged Dr.Ranjeeth Reddy to raise this issue in the Parliament too.
Mr.Suresh Chitturi supported the argument stated by Mr.Bahadur Ali. He said that we need to introspect as to what went wrong from our side. He said unfortunately we don’t have one powerful organization for this industry. He said poultry has never found mention by the government as an essential commodity but in contrast dairy, fisheries and aquaculture and other Animal Husbandry sectors are mentioned. He said presently where is our data to suggest that our production is in excess or in shortage.
Mr.OP Singh said that the unity of our industry is fundamental need of the hour. He said that if we do not unite then we shall perish in future. He advised restriction on production. He urged all stake holders of poultry industry to get poultry bracketed as an agriculture activity in all the states of India. He said that the financial institutions should know that poultry is part of agriculture in all states of India and this battle has to be fought on an urgent basis. He urged the Poultry India management to appoint a bureaucrat and a legal person to come up with a published progress report highlighting all data details of poultry industry and remain in constant touch with all wings of the government. He urged Poultry India management to advertise and highlight the benefits of poultry products on all known platforms so that this vital information is disseminated in the public domain.
Dr.AS Ranade supported the presentation made by Mr.OP Singh. He also stressed on the complete data compilation of poultry, which can be a reference to information details in case the government needs it. He said we should project ourselves as farmer body instead of claiming to be an industry.
Mr.C Vasanth Kumar supported the view of Dr.AS Ranade and urged the poultry fraternity to project themselves as a farmers’ body and not an industry. He urged the poultry industry to work with 50 percent placement. He said we should unite to come together in the promotion al activity for poultry.
Mr.NC Maity said that we should urge all state chief ministers to send representation to the Prime Minister and apprise him of the problems and suffering of this sector. Mr.Chakradhar Rao stressed on reducing the production, identifying the inherent problems in this sector and make representations to the government with unity of the fraternity.
Mr.Navin Kumar said that we should have a short term and long term strategy. He said in the short term we shall continue all our efforts in Delhi though we are disappointed with the om1ss1on in revival package. He said data compilation is a massive but essential need of the hour. He said our data details will be a proof of our contribution in this sector. He said compiling a data requires an investment that should be funded by all the stakeholders of the poultry sector and make it a reality by engaging an agency to collect and create a data base of Indian poultry industry. He said the long term strategy calls for promoting consumption to create a demand. He said we must make efforts to raise the per capita rise in consumption of eggs and broiler meat across the country. He said a corpus fund can be set up by the stakeholders of this sector to promote consumption and use brand ambassadors to meet the target.
Mr.Raghav Rao stressed on the need of PR activities to make our voices heard on the right platform. He said whatever data is there with the government it is not regularly updated. He said our industry gets together only when are faced by a crisis but once the crisis subsides our united efforts subside. He urged the industry to appoint a full-fledged PR Agency to highlight the details of poultry industry at all levels of government and public platforms. He said our short term strategy should be cutting down on our production. He said that the poultry producers face a rough patch from July to September each year so the planning to cut production should be made in advance.
Dr. Ranjeeth Reddy said all efforts and representation were made to the finance ministry but surprised how the omission on revival package for poultry missed the consideration of the government. He urged the Poultry India management to appoint a committee to handle the poultry issues with the government level experts. He advised the postponement of Poultry India exhibition and Knowledge to next year.
To sum up Mr.Anil Dhumal said,the Poultry India 2020 stands postponed to Nov 2021, final decision of the Knowledge Day will be taken in October first week or Webinar will be arranged. About the present situation he said we must stay united, restrict our production, generate data as required by GOI, appoint PR Agency for poultry products promotion and work hard to bring our poultry sector back on track. Thus, ended a very informative brain storming session to evolve a tested strategy to secure the future of poultry in these difficult times.
