A Coimbatore-based consumer organisation has appealed to the Animal Husbandry, Dairying, Fisheries and Fishermen Welfare Department to print the date of packing on Aavin milk packets in large font and add colour coding for every day in a week.
Citizens' Voice Coimbatore said in a letter to Minister for Milk and Dairy Development S.M. Nasar that it was often getting complaints from consumers that vendors were mixing old packets of Aavin milk when they purchase more number of packets.
C.M. Jayaraman, president of the consumer body, told The Hindu that the date of packing the milk was printed illegibly in very small fonts so that it was difficult for the buyers to read it.
“This can be rectified by increasing the size of the font of the date of packing. They may also print the first two alphabets of the day on which the milk is packed in Tamil and English. Aavin may also consider the possibility of introducing a colour coding system on every packet, printed adjacent to the date of manufacture. Seven different colours may be adopted to indicate the day of packing to help even the illiterate to ensure the freshness of the milk they buy,” he said.
According to him, some of the private agents of Aavin were allegedly collecting prices higher than the maximum retail price printed on the packets, ranging from 50 paise to ₹1 per litre.
“When consumers question, they respond arrogantly and refuse to sell milk products next time onwards to the customer. Considering the number of packets sold by a vendor, on an average 3,000 or more, the amount of money fleeced from buyers is substantial,” he said.
