With milk supplies to several parts of the city delayed by several hours, Aavin on Thursday suspended one engineer and placed another official on the waiting list since on charge of negligence after the homogeniser at its Ambattur dairy broke down.
The homogeniser ensures that the butter and skimmed milk powder is mixed properly with milk to arrive at the correct fat and solid non-fat content required in each variant of milk. Consumers in T. Nagar, West Mambalam, Nandanam, Korattur and Anna Nagar were told that they would get milk by afternoon.
Padmapriya Santhanam, a resident of West Mambalam, said that since she did not get milk delivered in the morning, she bought it from a local store.
"I don't know how local stores got the milk while cardholders did not," she said. Another resident said as she had guests at her place she bought some extra packets from a shop. Some residents said they bought a few packets additionally since they were worried if they would not get milk tomorrow.
Sources in Aavin said they had received complaints of milk having powder lumps due to the reconstitution not working properly last week. But the machinery was just allowed to continue to function without being repaired, which led to the breakdown.
Association’s charge
S. A. Ponnusamy of the Tamil Nadu Milk Dealers and Labourers Welfare Association said the delay in milk supplies was due to a host of factors, including milk shortage, faulty equipment, want of labourers and official apathy. “Aavin is on a path to destruction. If the government does not take corrective steps now, the organisation will die a fast death,” he said.
On Thursday, supply of around 60,000 packets of milk to monthly cardholders had been delayed. “We managed to supply these packets by pooling in milk from Sholinganallur, Madhavaram and Kakkalur dairies,” said an official source.
For Friday and till the equipment is repaired at the Ambattur dairy, the milk major has arranged for reconstituted milk from other dairies in Madurai and Salem.
Aavin procures around 27 lakh litres of milk a day of which the city consumes around 14.5 lakh litres a day.
