Unexpected demand from Madhya Pradesh has raised jaggery prices at Anakapalli market by 10 per cent over the last ten days.
Usually, traders from MP take on average 10-15 truck loads (each load contains 10 tonne) of jaggery in a month from here, but now they are taking 4-5 trucks everyday, and this is the main reason for the price hike, said KLN Rao, president, Anakapalli Jaggery Merchants Association.
This has also led to increase in arrivals and currently 20,000-25,000 lumps (each lump is of 15 kg) arrive daily.
However, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal traders are moving stock as usual which is 5-6 trucks of jaggery daily from the market.
Ten days ago merchants purchased black jaggery at Rs 185 and quality jaggery at Rs 210-215 per 10 kg. Now the prices are ruling at Rs 205 and Rs 235-240 respectively. “Due to demand from other states, we expect these prices to continue for some more days,” K Buchi Raju, a jaggery trader, said.
Jaggery arrivals are also likely to increase by 400,000-500,000 lumps during this season as compared with the last season. “Initially, we anticipated some fall in arrivals during this season due to attractive supporting price offered by local sugar mills, but sugarcane production improved because of good weather leading to good arrivals,” Rao said.
During this season between October and March, Anakapalli market received 2.5 million lumps as against 2.1 million lumps in the same period last season. In April and May, traders expect another 600,000-700,000 lumps.