SHAKEELA ANDRABI
SRINAGAR: In Kashmir valley, various job-oriented courses and avenues are being created by local youth for tackling unemployment effectively. Recently two engineering students started poultry farm for Indonesian black-breed chicken called Ayam Cemani or Kadaknath in Srinagar. One of the students, Numair Rasheed, said, “We are all friends and wanted to start a joint venture together. We are dealing with Indonesian breed of chicken and we call our farm The Royal Feathers. One of the reasons for starting this business was to provide employment opportunities to many local youth of area.”
According to Numair, “We ordered chickens from Ambala. Poultry farm is one of the best ways to curb unemployment and meeting raising demand for white meat. Another engineering student Mamoon Khan said, “These chickens contain about 27 per cent more protein than normal chickens, due to which it is costly and even good for cardiac patients. Many veterinarians visit poultry farm established by these two engineering students. Pertinent to mention here that Ayam Cemani is a black-bird. Moreover, unlike common chicken which eat any type of feed, these chicken eat only high-quality feed. Each egg (black) costs Rs 25 to Rs 50 in market, they said. In Indonesian, Ayam means Chicken and Cemani means a village or solid black in Sanskrit. According to common people, it is really encouraging that engineering students have decided to open Kadaknath chicken poultry farm.