Bhubaneswar: Prices of dairy products like chhena and paneer will increase from May 1, Cuttack District Dairy Product Traders’ Association said Tuesday.
The wholesale price of chhena will be hiked by `20 per kg, paneer by `30 per kg and khoa by `60 per kg, the association said. The association cited the rise in milk prices as the reason behind the hike in the prices milkbased products.
The general secretary of the association said, “Milk is the base ingredient for all dairy products. When milk price rises, the prices of dairy products will rise automatically.
This is the wholesale price and not the retail price which has been hiked.” Explaining the price rise, he said, “Five litres of milk is needed to make a kilogram of chhena.
So, when the milk price was hiked by `4 per litre, we were forced to hike the chhena price by `20 per kg. That apart, transportation cost has also increased. We do not intend to harass the consumers, but we are helpless.”
Recently, the state-owned Odisha State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation (Omfed) hiked the price of milk effective from April 1, 2023. The federation increased the prices of milk by `2 per half a liter packet. It attributed the price hike to an increase in the costs of packaging, logistics, cattle feed, and other operational costs.
PNN