Those who buy Nandini milk will have to dig deeper into their pockets from Wednesday morning as a litre of milk will be dearer by Rs. 2. The Karnataka Milk Federation announced the hike on Tuesday. The cost of a litre of the popular toned milk will now be Rs. 29 (in southern Karnataka, including Bangalore). A litre of milk in North Karnataka will be Rs. 30. However, in Gulbarga a litre will cost Rs. 32 as only the homogenised milk is sold there.
This is the third hike since February 2012. Tuesday’s hike was in the offing after the State government allowed the federation to hike the milk price to fund its infrastructure projects and also meet the increasing cost of transport, raw materials and increased quantity of milk being procured.
The federation, through this hike, is set to gain about Rs. 440 crore from sale of milk alone.
Curd price
Following the hike, a litre of curd will now be Rs. 36 and the costliest milk from the KMF’s stable would be full cream Samrudhi milk at Rs. 38 a litre. Even the price of other products such as ghee, sweets and other milk-based products will be revised subsequently, KMF sources confirmed.
“The unions have to create a corpus fund to meet the funds for infrastructure. In several old dairies, machineries have to be replaced. This additional revenue will be used to fund these infrastructure only,” KMF Director (Marketing) Raviprakash Kakade, said.
The federation procures about 55 kg of milk daily and sells about 30 lakh litres as milk while about 3 lakh litres is converted into curd and 3 lakh lakh litres sold as Ultra heat treated (UHT) milk. About 1 lakh litres is used for preparing sweets and other milk products. The remaining quantity is converted to skimmed milk powder, Mr. Kakade said, adding that the hike would only cover about 50 per cent of the milk procured.
While the federation plans to set up three powder conversion plants with a capacity to handle 10 lakh kg of milk at a cost of Rs. 200 crore, a flexi pack unit to pack milk for schoolchildren is estimated to cost Rs. 160 crore.
‘No interference’
Bangalore Special Correspondent reports:
Minister for Law, Animal Husbandry and Parliamentary Affairs T.B. Jayachandra on Tuesday said the State government will not interfere in the Karnataka Milk Federation’s decision to hike the price of milk and curd from September 11.
Asked about misuse of funds by the KMF, he said a report has been sought and officials who have indulged in irregularities will be punished.
