KHYBER: Customs clearing agents at Torkham have demanded lifting of ban on transportation of newborn chicks across the border in pickup vehicles.
Addressing a news conference at Landi Kotal Press Club on Thursday, poultry clearing agents Qari Nazeemullah and Ablaan Ali Shinwari said that around 80 pickup vehicles were in service to take thousands of chicks across the border before outbreak of coronavirus. However, a ban was imposed on them under coronavirus-related SOPs last year, they added.
They said that the ban rendered hundreds of workers jobless as they were directly related to the poultry trade. “Thousands of chicks die of suffocation in long vehicles as they are stuffed into these vehicles by the traders to save transportation cost at the border,” they said.