Sweets to cost more because of rise in price of milk. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 23: People with a sweet tooth should be ready to dig deeper into their pockets this Diwali. Sweets have become costlier with rasogolla, a common favourite, selling for Rs 8 a piece, hence going up by Rs 2.

Traders, though, are attributing the price rise to recent rise in the price of milk.

President of the Utkal Mistanna Byabasai Samiti Bimbadhar Behera said: “After the state-owned Orissa State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Limited (Omfed) has hiked milk price by Rs 2 per litre, there is no other way for sweet stall owners than to hike price of sweets.”

Now, milk is being sold at Rs 24 per litre. Behera said that with the hike in milk price, cost of the chhena (cottage cheese), the main ingredient for making sweets, has gone up.

Owner of the reputed sweet shop Bapu Sweets, Pramod Prusty said: “Now, a sweet stall owner has to buy cottage cheese at Rs 100 to Rs 110 per kg and maintain the product. At such a price, how can a sweet stall owner be able to give the sweets to the customers at a lesser price.”

While price of cottage cheese has gone up by Rs 10 to Rs 15 per kg, the price of khuaa, another important ingredient for making sweets, has gone up by Rs 20 to Rs 30. Sweet prices have gone up as milk supply has been badly hit because of the flood. The shortage of milk is pegged at 38 lakh litres per day. Against the state’s daily requirement of around 84 lakh litres of milk per day, the production is only 46 lakh litres.

The collection of the milk by Omfed has come down by 50,000 per litre.

Omfed public relation officer Subhas Chandra Tripathy said: “Omfed used to collect four lakh litre across the state. Now, the collection has come down to 3.5 lakh litre per day because of the massive loss caused by the flood.”

As per the notification issued by the sweet kiosk owners association, the famous traditional sweet chenna jhilli will now cost Rs 6 per piece. The chennapoda will cost Rs 180 per kg, gulab jamun and rasogolla Rs 160 per kg and kaju barfi Rs 480 per kg.

However, the customers have not taken the rise in price of sweets easily.

Prashant Mohanty, a state government employee, said: “We can no longer buy sweets at our will. The price of the sweets will certainly affect people belonging to the lower middle class and middle class. The government should develop a mechanism so that both the sweet kiosk owners and the general customers will benefit equally.”

The city has nearly 430 sweet kiosks, which require around 10 tonne of chenna everyday.

Chenna is being supplied from areas such as Nimapara, Niali, Salipur Konark and Banki. However, as these areas were hit by the flood, the city suffered from shortage of milk. Fisheries and animal resources development minister Ramesh Majhi said: “All possible steps have been taken to enhance the milk production in the state.

Around 4,923 milk cooperative societies have already been set up with an enrolment of 2,55,205 milk men.”

Majhi further said that to produce good quality of cows, the calf-rearing programme and artificial insemination under the National Project on Cattle and Buffalo have been taken up in the state.

The minister further said, Kalyani, the integrated livestock development programme for sustainable livelihood, has been launched in collaboration with Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation Development Research Foundation to boost the milk production.