With over Rupees 10 cr dues,Anantapur Milk Dairy faces severe crisis

Anantapur: The Anantapur Milk Dairy of the state government in the district is in a financial crisis, unable to pay even staff salaries every month. It is hardly able to pay farmers for the milk procured from them. Only once in every two months salaries are paid to the staff.

Highlights:

• The milk dairy is yet to receive its outstanding amounts from Telangana government, SKU and JNTU
• The dairy procured one lakh litres of milk from cow and buffalo farmers in the villages until 2008, which began to decline since 2010
• The market share of the government dairy fell from 90 per cent to 10 per cent over the past seven years
• Allegations abound that the government is deliberately promoting private milk dairies, owned by TDP members

The dairy sources say that the Telangana Dairy owes Rs. seven crore to them as the milk supplied by the Anantapur Dairy of the AP government to the Telangana Dairy has not been paid. Similarly, there are other government and private milk dairies which owed the local dairy Rs. three crore. Even government departments and local institutions like SKU, JNTU and others which owed monetarily to the dairy have kept the bills pending.

The AP Dairy which procured one lakh litres of milk from cow and buffalo farmers in the villages until 2008 and was on the brighter side of milk dairy development began to decline since 2010 when the market witnessed private dairies boom and domination. More than 90 percent of the milk procured by the local government dairy were transported to Hyderabad in the integrated state of Andhra Pradesh and also to Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The AP Dairy Development Corporation assets and properties at Hyderabad are yet to be bifurcated. The dues on corporation assets which are now under the control of the Telangana government is pegged at Rs. seven crore. The dairy in Ongole, Prakasam districts also owed Rs. three crore to the dairy.

The market share of the government dairy fell from 90 percent to 10 percent over the past seven years. The local government dairy is gasping for breath. It is a common knowledge that the government policies are deliberately killing its own dairies to safeguard the interests of private dairies most of which are owned by ruling party members.

Deputy director of AP Dairy Y. Sreenivasulu told ‘The Hans India' that as many as 5,680 farmers are supplying 25,000 litres to the dairy every day. He said that the AP Dairy is in deep crisis but the corporation is asking the local units to either do or die by braving all the odds in a hostile market. Now it is selling milk to anyone including private dairies who walk in and ask for milk.
Government milk dairies governed by strict rules and specifications are functioning with hands tied when compared to private dairies which are flexible and rises to the occasion by making necessary changes to promote their business. They change prices according to their whims and fancies.

While established private dairies are subject to scrutiny by the government with regard to cost versus fat percentage, the local dairies which mushroomed in every district indulge in malpractices and adulteration of milk. The milk sold by them is hazardous to health as they mix synthetic powder, dalda, palmolein oil and urea in the milk for thickening of watery milk.

The farmers too are allegedly administering a banned hormonal drug called Oxytocin to buffaloes for enhancing milk production of the animal. This drug not only damages the animal’s health but also the health of the milk consumer.

By Ravi P Benjamin