Milk, curd demand rises for Sankranti in Ranchi

RANCHI: Despite not being major milk producing state, with most of its demand being met by Bihar, the people of the city were able to buy milk and curd for Makar Sankranti without having to face a milk crisis, like in 2011 and 2012.
According to market sources, the major players — Bihar State Milk Cooperative Federation Limited (brand name ‘Sudha’), Jharkhand State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation (brand name ‘Medha’) in collaboration with National Dairy Development Board’s Mother Dairy and Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation and Amul – are prepared to handle the sudden surge in the demand for milk and its byproducts for the festive season.
The largest milk supplier in Jharkhand, Sudha, has made pre-festival arrangements by ensuring an addition supply of milk from Bihar. “We have the required technology to ensure milk remains fresh for a few days. It is then circulated proportionately in the city to sellers when demand increases,” said M N Dwivedi, chief executive of Ranchi dairy.
He also said that , there are a number of people engaged to ensure that the milk reaches the other dairies and individual sellers on time in the city and other neighboring districts.
As compared to a daily average sale of one lakh litres of milk on a normal day, Sudha received a demand of close to two lakh litres on Wednesday. There was a similar rise in the demand for curd too. “As against the usual demand of 3,500 cups of curd per day, demand for curd increased to 8,000 cups. We had sufficient stock to fulfill the demand,” said Dwivedi.
Medha-Mother dairy, with three plants in Ranchi, Deoghar and Koderma comes in at a close second, accounting for the supply of nearly 10% of the net requirement of milk. As against the usual consumption of 34,000 litres in the capital, it supplied 45,000 litres on Wednesday and was prepared for a similar bulk supply on Thursday too.
Amul, which sells pasteurized milk in tetra packs, had to increase supply to meet the demand. “Amul curd is available for sale in Bokaro and Dhanbad only and is yet to be introduced in Ranchi,” said branch manager Priyabrata Sahoo.