Bengaluru, Mar 2: After increasing the price of regular milk from Rs 29 to Rs 33 per litre in January, the Karnataka Co-operative Milk Federation (KMF) has quietly reduced 20 ml of milk in its half-litre pack.
When the price was Rs 29 for a litre of milk, the KMF had sold half a litre at a cost of Rs 15 in order to avoid the problem of tendering 50 paise change to customers and simultaneously increased the quantity of milk from 500 ml to 520 ml. However, the Federation did not take these changes into account when the price of a litre of milk was increased to Rs 33 in January.
At present, Nandini milk consumers pay Rs 33 per litre, while the cost is Rs 17 instead of Rs 16.50 for a half-litre pack containing 500 ml. This time, the Federation has not compensated with an additional 20 ml of milk, which was done in the past.
A homemaker from Uttarahalli said she paid Rs 17 for half a litre of milk (500 ml) besides Rs 2 as delivery cost.
KMF Director (Marketing and Engineering) Ravikumar Kakade told Deccan Herald the decision was taken in the presence of all stakeholders. “The smaller the pack, the more the cost of production. It cannot be equated. Hence, the cost of half a litre of milk need not necessarily be half of the cost of a litre of milk,” he said.
Last time, it was a sort of bonus given by the Federation with an additional 50 ml of milk. This time, the financial positions are bleak. Hence, it is difficult to give the same benefit. Whenever we have fraction issues, we have rounded the figure,” he said.
The KMF sells 10 different kinds of milk, but Nandini Pasteurised Toned Milk constitutes the bulk of its sales. In 2014-15, the KMF procured on an average 58.69 lakh litres of milk per day from nearly 13,000 milk co-operatives.
The average milk sale was 32.38 lakh litres per day. In 2015-16 so far, these figures have increased to 66.45 lakh litres and 34.39 lakh litres per day correspondingly.
The KMF sells about 18.7 lakh litres of Nandini milk per day in Bengaluru and 34.7 lakh litres across the State.
It procures around 59.5 lakh litres of milk per day and the excess milk is used for dairy products such as ghee, curd, butter milk and Nandini sweet products.
Meeting on machinery tender
The Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF), the apex body of 13 co-operative milk unions, will call a board meeting by March 10 to decide on the action to be taken with regard to irregularities in the tenders worth Rs 69 crore.
JD(S) MLA H D Revanna, one of the directors in the KMF, and KMF Chairman P Nagaraju have accused former KMF managing director S N Jayaram of committing irregularities in calling tenders for purchase of machineries. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Nagaraju said a committee headed by principal secretary of the Co-operation Department had a submitted a report on the irregularities in the KMF. “The committee ruled the KMF board has the final authority. We will hold discussion on the tender issue,” he said.
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