The absence of Sudha peda in East Champaran this Navratri has not gone down well with most devotees and retailers of milk products.

Muzaffarpur-based Tirhut Milk Utpadak Limited (Timul) supplies milk and associated products to East Champaran. However, since June, supply of the favourite, Sudha peda, to the district has stopped. Demand for the product increases during Navratri. Supply of other products from Timul has also decreased, sources said.

This comes at a time when the Timul-owned milk chilling centre in Motihari has supplied 15,000 litres of milk to the co-operative society in September-October. The procurement figure is expected to touch 25,000 litres during the peak season of November-December against last year’s figure of 23,500 litres, said chilling centre field supervisor Mohan Prasad Yadav. He, however, could not say anything on why the supply of peda was stopped in the district.

There are around 100 milk booths of Sudha spread across Motihari. “Against our average sale of nearly 2kg peda daily, most of us used to get an additional supply of 2-3kg of peda during Navratri to cater to the requirements of devotees. But this year we have got nothing,” said a retailer in Balua Chowk in Motihari Subodh Kumar. Sources said Timul is meeting a growing demand for Sudha peda in Delhi. This is one of the reasons for stopping the product’s supply to Motihari by the management.

The district unit of Dugda Aapoorti Sangh — an organisation for milkmen — has threatened to stop the supply of milk from East Champaran to Timul after Dussehra if it continues to ignore public demands, particularly for peda.

Timul managing director Vijay Kumar said: “We will look into the matter.”