Increasing rate of ‘til’ in this Makar Sankranti season has resulted in ‘low sale’ of tilkut in the State capital. With just two days left for the religious occasion, the oldest hub of sellers at Mahavir Chowk is witnessing few consumers willing to purchase varieties of tilkut in kilos. The scenario is almost same in prominent junctions of Ranchi including Kokar, Hinoo, Birsa Chowk, Kadru, Ratu Road and Main Road where people from Chatra and Gaya put up temporary stalls.
Even the costumers here coming across the city and neighbouring blocks feel it is perfectly fine to observe the festival for namesake. Shree Kallu tilkut shop wherein about four generations have been running this business over a century was surrounded with only a dozen people on Sunday.
Asking the reason of few customers, owner Pritam Verma of this shop said, “Earlier, there were only four shops involved in this business. We begin the sale after two days of Diwali. Every year, the road is packed in these last days of Sankranti but this time the situation is vice-versa. We have been unable to earn a profit.”
Be it sugar or jaggery based tilkut, til laddu, rewari, tilpapdi, tilmaska or til pitha all are available between Rs 200 to 300 per kilogram. “We are purchasing til at a rate of Rs 40 to 50. The selling price will obviously be more than twice of this purchasing cost since we have to pay our labourers Rs 200 everyday. last year, we sold these products from Rs 160 but this year the high range has affected our business. People who used to buy in kilograms are limited to 500 to 700 grams,” said Dilip Kumar running Shree Mahavir Tilkut Bhandar opposite to Mahavir temple for last 50 years.
The high cost of flat rice (chuda) and jaggery has also affected the vendors here who sell these items as a custom of Makar Sankranti food. Ram P Rao, a vendor who had been coming here for selling chuda and jaggery for past three years said, “Till last year, we had sold five sacks of chuda by this time. But this year rare people are keen to purchase more than a kilo chuda or jaggery.” Similar were the words of Pappu who has coming here for the same purpose since 2009. Basmati flat rice per kilogram is available in Rs 60 whereas Arwa flat rice ranges between Rs 30 to 35.
Even the customers accepted this ‘price hike in til products’ a valid reason of restricting their ‘tilkut purchase’. 30 year old home maker Raj laxmi Sinha, a resident of Chiraundi village in Kanke block and 51 year old government employee Roshni of Ratu block said, “This year, we purchased only half kilo jaggery tilkut as the rate is quite high.”
However, many tilkut sellers are hoping to make a so called benefit by the end of this month or February first week when winter bids adieu and so does the season of eating til.