Sudha Dairy milk pouches in Ranchi on Thursday. Picture by Hardeep Singh
Ahead of Durga Puja, Bihar-based Sudha Dairy milk pouches will be dearer by Rs 2 across Jharkhand from Friday, but Jharkhand's home-grown rival Medha decided not to increase prices right now and instead introduced two products, ghee and peda, on Thursday.
The CEO of Jamshedpur Dairy, the Adityapur-based plant of Bihar State Co-operative Milk Producers' Federation (Comfed) that markets products under Sudha brand, Md Zamiruddin said after the Rs 2 hike a litre of plain milk would cost Rs 38, Sudha tea special Rs 40 and full cream milk (Sudha Shakti) Rs 42.
Pouches of 500ml of plain, tea and full cream milk variants will cost Rs 20, Rs 20 and Rs 21, he added.
Justifying the hike, he said, 'Diesel prices are on the rise, electricity tariff was recently revised and we are paying more to farmers from whom we procure raw milk.'
Sudha supplies around 3 lakh litres milk on an average to Jharkhand a day while demand peaks by 25-30 per cent in the festive season, Zamiruddin said, but they were ready to meet extra demand.
Ranchi-based Medha managing director B.S. Khanna said they would take a call on hiking prices after the festivities. 'We won't increase price as yet,' he said, anticipating an increase in demand for Medha after Sudha's hike.
Right now, Medha, a smaller company, supplies 75,000 litres of milk a day, with its plain variant costing Rs 36 and full cream variant Rs 40 a litre.
On their two new products that hit retail shops on Thursday, Khanna said an 500ml jar of Medha ghee came for Rs 500 and a 200gm box of pedas for Rs 70. 'On ghee, we are giving Rs 10 off as an introductory discount,' he said.
Ranchi sweetmeat shop owners also said a price hike was likely. A staffer of Ranchi's well-known Uday Mistanna Bhandar said they had their dairy and were not dependent on milk pouches.
'But, as demand for sweets rises in festive season, there is a crisis of milk and paneer. Yesterday (Wednesday), 100kg of paneer got over before evening. Also, sugar price has seen a hike. So, expect a hike of least Re 1 or Rs 2 per sweet,' he said.
