With Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra witnessing a decline in jaggery production, traders at the Anakapalli market are expecting to earn a good margin on their cold storage stock. Traders here usually store jaggery, purchased from local farmers, and sell it to their counterparts in other states.
In fact, traders have already started moving their stock from the cold storage as jaggery arrivals have more or less stopped to the Anakapalli market — currently only about 1,000 lumps (each lump contains 15 kg) arrive daily.
“After expenses like cold storage rentals and interests on investments, we are earning a margin of Rs 3,000-4,000 on each tonne of jaggery stocks,” K Buchi Raju, a senior jaggery trader, told Business Standard. Orissa traders have so far picked up 50-70 loads (each load consists 10 tonnes) of jaggery in the last one week at Rs 258-260 per 10 kg.
However, this year, jaggery prices shot up 70-80 per cent in the Anakapalli market, compared with the last season, due to low arrivals. During last season (2007- 08), the market received about 2.7 million lumps of jaggery whereas this season it was 2.5 million lumps. The 2008-09 jaggery season ends by June.
