Kerala   

Milma facing worst financial crisis, says its chairman

Thiruvananthapuram: P.T. Gopala Kurup, chairman of the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma), has said that Milma is going through its worst financial crisis and unless the government comes forward to subsidise milk or allows a price hike of Rs.3 a litre, this cooperative giant will have to be wound up. Mr. Kurup was speaking at a press conference here on Monday.

If the government refuses to hike the price, Milma will be forced to restrict its supply to whatever milk is procured internally. Going by the current shortage in milk procurement in Kerala — three lakh litres a day — a chunk of consumers will have to go without milk, Mr. Kurup said.

A high-level delegation of Milma will meet Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on Tuesday to apprise him of the situation.

“It is no longer viable for a cooperative organisation like us to continue to supply milk to the entire market through external procurement, while suffering such huge losses. Milma had an accumulated loss of Rs.30 crore last year, of which Rs.17 crore was on account of the milk procured from neighbouring States,” he said. The Tamil Nadu government gave a subsidy of Rs. 25 crore last year to its milk marketing cooperative, he said. Mr. Kurup said the crux of the problem lay in the steady decline in internal milk production.

Dairy farmers were quitting the sector in large numbers and unless they were given more incentives through a price hike, the situation would only worsen.

Milma has proposed that the price of milk be hiked by Rs. 3 a litre and of this, Rs. 2.25 a litre be passed on to the farmers.

The gap between market demand and internal procurement of milk has been widening since 2003.

In 2006, Milma procured nearly eight lakh litres of milk a day, which came down to 7.4 lakh litres in 2007.

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