Kerala is facing a shortage of milk, forcing the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, the largest supplier of milk in the state, to buy from neighbouring Karnataka.
The move is putting a burden on the federation, popularly known as Milma, which is suffering a loss of Rs 3 per litre of milk procured. The State government is opposing any price hike fearing public resentment.
Milma has three regional cooperative milk producers' unions at Kozhikode, Eranakulam (Kochi) and state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
While the Malabar Regional Milk Cooperative Union Limited based in Kozhikode is able to meet its requirement from domestic production, the southern parts of the state are facing a shortage to the tune of 270,000 litres a day.
"The Malabar regional union, consisting of six districts, procures about 300,000 litres a day and this is sufficient to meet the demand here," said D Jayachandran, managing director of the Malabar union.
The situation, however, is different in the south.
"Our domestic procurement is 230,000 litres but the consumption in the four districts that come under our jurisdiction is 400,000 litres," Babu Joseph, the managing director of Thiruvananthapuram Regional Co-operative Milk Producers' Union, told IANS. "The country in general is witnessing scarcity of milk. Tamil Nadu is facing it and same is the case with north Indian states. Karnataka has enough milk but it has raised the price by Rs 1.70 per litre from Dec 13, 2007," said Joseph.
"In Kerala milk production is falling as people are gradually withdrawing from the sector. But the drastic shortfall we are facing now is not due to this," he added.
Profit from dairy farming has declined in the state due to rise in input cost.
"The average yield per cow in the state is only seven litres and the profit per litre of milk for a farmer is around Rs 3," said Jayachandran.
Last year also Kerala faced milk scarcity in the first three to four months.
"In the last financial year Milma suffered a loss of Rs 170 million as it had to procure milk from the neighbouring states to meet the shortage. The Eranakulam union itself suffered a loss of Rs 30 million," said T P Marcos, the chairman of the Ernakulam Regional Cooperative Milk Producers' Union.
"We have held discussions with the government on hiking milk prices. The government is against it. Our position is that if there is no price hike the government should bear the loss suffered by Milma on milk procurement from Karnataka," said Marcos.
In Thiruvananthapuram, Milma has already restricted supply of certain varieties of milk on which the losses are high.
"Till now, we haven't put any restriction on supply of milk in our area. But we may have to resort to this strategy so that the losses don't pile up," said Marcos.
|
