Kolkata: Chicken is set to become cheaper in the domestic market as the price of soya meal , a key poultry feed, is expected to ease off on increased availability.Industry executives said soya meal exports plunged 75.7 per cent year-on-year in May as shipments to Iran fell sharply because of the US sanctions. This has increased supply of soya meal in the domestic market, which in turn is expected to push its prices down. Soya meal constitutes 45 per cent of the poultry feed. “Since, the soya meal availability has increased in the market, prices too will fall,” Madan Mohan Maity, secretary at West Bengal Poultry Federation, told ET. “This will bring down chicken prices by 10 per cent. We are hoping price of chicken to decline from end June.” Retail chicken prices soared nearly 30 per cent to Rs 220 per kg in May from Rs 170 in January. But Amit Saraogi, managing director at Anmol Group, said non-availability of one-day old chicks had led to a rise in chicken prices. “Some companies are artificially controlling broiler production through lesser production of chicks,” he said.The poultry industry in India mainly consists of broiler meat and table egg with other poultry meats forming a marginal proportion of the overall market. The broiler chicken market is pegged at 4.2-4.5 million tonnes. The per capita consumption of chicken in India is around 4 kg. Soya meal prices have already begun to slide, according to industry executives. From Rs 3,800 per quintal in mid-May, prices have dropped to Rs 3,600. However, the industry is still concerned about rising maize prices, which constitute about 55 per cent of the poultry feed. “In January, price of maize was Rs 13 per kg, which reached a high of Rs 19.95 per kg in the second week of May. At present, it is hovering around Rs 17.80 per kg,” said Ritesh Sahu, senior commodity analyst at Angel Broking. Maize production in the rabi 2018-19 season was hit by a drought in Bihar and parts of Andhra Pradesh. Earlier, a weak monsoon and infestation of Fall Armyworm had impacted the output in the kharif 2018-19 season in the main producing states of Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra.