Rains make buyers desert Anakapalli jaggery market

Good times don't seem to be interested in the Anakapalli jaggery market, the second largest in the country. Even as the market was trying to recover from the hooch effect, comes another blow.

This time in the form of rain. Heavy downpour in Orissa, West Bengal and in some parts of Andhra Pradesh has curtailed demand for jaggery. Without buyers, stocks are lying idle resulting in traders incurring losses.

Said I V R Nageswara Rao, president, Anakapalli Jaggery Merchants Association, "During the month of June, we sold our stocks at Rs 1.48-1.50 lakh per load (each load contains 10 tonnes) of jaggery. Later, prices slipped to Rs 1.46 lakh per load during the first week of July due to drop in jaggery consumption, particularly in Orissa. Rains further lowered them to Rs 1.37 lakh per load. Now, we have some buyers willing to purchase at Rs 1.35 -1.36 lakh per load but if the situation continues, traders will incur huge losses."

Amidst high expectations, jaggery traders stocked about 2,800 loads of jaggery during the 2004-05 season. They invested about Rs 1.25 lakh on each load to buy the stocks.

"If we can sell our stocks at Rs 1.50 lakh per load, we can get a margin of about Rs 7,000-8,000 on each load but the prevailing prices are hovering around Rs 1.37 lakh," he stated.

Traders have to incur additional expenditure on stocks of jaggery, other than the purchasing price like rentals on cold storage plants, interest on investments and transportation costs.

To recover all these expenses in addition to the investments made, traders should sell their stocks at least at Rs 1.40 lakh per load of jaggery, he said.

"Anakapalli traders have about 1,000 loads of jaggery with them. And new jaggery lumps have started entering the market. If we fail to move the existing stock immediately, it would be very difficult to sell it later," he said.

On the other hand, colour jaggery (No1 grade jaggery) prices have increased in the Anakapalli market due to short supply. A month back, colour jaggery cost only Rs 17.5 per kg but later it increased to touch Rs 19.70 per kg and currently has stabilised at Rs 19 per kg, Rao said.

Though the quantity of colour jaggery that arrives at the market every year from Nidadavolu, Bobbili and Anakapalli areas is very less, this year due to rains colour jaggery stock is yet to arrive.

"Of the total 900-1,000 loads of jaggery stock, colour jaggery would be around 25 loads," he added.