This Diwali, shell out more for sweets, other dairy products

Vijay C Roy

Chandigarh, October 20

This Diwali, be prepared to shell out more for your favourite sweets and other dairy products. With a consistent rise in milk prices and fuel cost, sweet shop owners say they are left with no option but to increase the prices by 10-20 per cent.

Daily production of milk: 372 lakh litres

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The average daily milk production in the state is around 372 lakh litres. Of the total milk produced in rural and semi-urban areas, around 200 lakh litres is marketable surplus

Of this, around half of the milk sold is handled by the organised sector, comprising dairy cooperatives and private dairy companies. The rest is handled by the unorganised sector

Market sources say that not only milk, prices of all ingredients which are used for making sweets and milk products have risen in the recent past and it’s difficult to absorb the rising input costs anymore.

Compared to the last Diwali, the cost of milk has gone up to Rs 6 per litre, and this has a ripple effect on the cost of milk products like ghee, paneer and khoya, which are used in preparing various sweets. Even lumpy skin disease (LSD) in cattle impacted the milk production in the state by 5-10 per cent in the past few months, thus affecting the milk availability.

“Milk is an important ingredient for any sweet or dairy product. An increase of up to Rs 6 per litre in the past year, may not look to be a significant rise at a first glance. But, since milk and its secondary products are an important ingredient in making sweets, it impacts a lot. Secondly, rising fuel cost is another dampener. So we were forced to increase the prices of sweets by 10-20 per cent,” said Sumit Bawa of Amritsar-based Om Milk Bhandar & Sweet Shop.

Insiders also mentioned that since LSD in cattle affected milk production, so many sweet shop owners have either cut down their production or restricted the varieties they offer.

Rajwinder Singh of Ludhiana-based Sartaj Sweets & Savouries said, “It’s an open secret that all the sweet makers have increased the prices. They can hold the prices to certain extent, but now it was very difficult. In the past year, the cost of milk and all inputs such as dry fruits, ghee, khoya, fuel and even electricity has risen.”