Residents need not worry about scarcity of milk and curd during Makar Sankranti this year as Patna Dairy Project (PDP) has made adequate arrangements.
PDP is Bihar's flagship milk co-operative society, which sells products under the brand name Sudha. At this time of the year, the demand of milk and curd almost doubles. For convenience of residents, PDP would make curd available in different sizes, including 200gm, 400gm, 500gm, 2kg and 16kg. Milk would be available in the same quantities of one litre and half litre.
A senior official of PDP said: 'On this occasion, the demand of dairy products goes up as people place orders in bulk. We have made adequate arrangements of curd and milk. This year, we have excluded 5kg and 18kg packets, as we did not get a good response last year.
Till now, 20 lakh litres of milk has been sold and 5 lakh litres have been kept for Wednesday. Similarly, 15 lakh kg of curd has been sold out, while 50,000kg of curd has been kept in store.
PDP would also arrange milk tankers having a capacity of 20,000 litres from 7am to 10am on Wednesday as well for Thursday as many people would celebrate the festival on January 14 and 15.
Six prominent Sudha booths have been identified where the tankers would be stationed, which include Boring Canal Road roundabout, Rajvanshi Nagar (near Hanuman temple), Kadamkuan, Kankerbagh, Mehandru and Patliputra Colony.
The official said: 'PDP has taken this initiative so that residents would not have to run from pillar to post to get the products.'
Last year, 19 lakh litres of milk and 1.4 lakh kg of curd were sold during the festival. However, the average demand of the milk and curd on a daily basis in Patna is 2 lakh litres and 1,500kg, respectively. Like every year, the PDP has organised dahi khao and inaam pao competition on January 19 at Phulwarisharif in which people from other districts would take part. Those interested to take part can send an SMS to 9835035201 mentioning name, age, address, district and sex. The registration would be done on the day of competition between 10am to 12noon.
Resident, naturally, expressed happiness over PDP's move. Dilip Kumar, a resident of Boring Road, said: 'Like every year, Sudha has lived up to expectations. I am happy that curd, the most important ingredient on Makar Sankranti was available in all sizes. It has made our life easy. Thanks to Sudha, we do not have to bother about curd and milk.'