Urging the State government to hike the procurement price of milk by ₹10 per litre, members of Tamil Nadu Milk Producers’ Association staged a protest in front of Aavin at Chithode here on Friday.
Led by its district secretary P. Vengidusamy, members said that procurement price was last hiked by the State government in 2019. “But the price of cattle feed and other production costs had gone up significantly in the past few years”, they said and wanted the procurement price of cow milk to be increased to ₹42 a litre and buffalo milk to ₹51 a litre.
The DMK, as promised in its election manifesto, had reduced the price of milk by ₹3 a litre causing loss to Aavin to the tune of ₹.300 crore. “The State government should compensate the loss and provide funds to the cooperative societies”, they urged. Aavin procures 32 lakh litres of milk per day from farmers through societies, the association said, and wanted steps to be taken to increase it to one crore litres per day.
They also wanted all the dues to members to be cleared and create a revolving fund of ₹500 crore so that dues to the farmers are settled without delay.
To prevent stealing of milk from tankers while transportation to cold storage facilities, the quantity and quality should be recorded in register and verified when needed, they said. They also wanted commission charges to retailers to be increased so that sale of Aavin products gets increased in par with milk products of private companies. After the protest, they submitted a petition to the General Manager of Aavin.
