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Harish Damodaran

New Delhi, Aug 11

There seems to be no respite for urban consumers from price increases in their daily glass of milk.

Effective Tuesday, all the major dairies in Mumbai will be charging 10 per cent more for toned milk — containing three per cent fat and 8.5 per cent solids-not-fat (SNF) — from Rs 20 to Rs 22 a litre. Prices of full-cream milk (six per cent fat and nine per cent SNF) are also scheduled to go up from Rs 27 to Rs 28 a litre.

It is reliably learnt that Kolkata too is headed for a rupee one a litre hike from September 1. The dairies, there, have ‘informally agreed’ to raise prices of toned and full-cream milk, currently fixed at Rs 21 and Rs 27 a litre, respectively.

In Delhi, prices were last increased in June by a rupeefor full-cream milk. There is a talk now of a similar hike happening soon in the case of toned milk.

Since February 2006, the National Capital Region has witnessed six rounds of upward price revisions — from Rs 15 to 20 a litre for toned and from Rs 19 to Rs 25 a litre for full-cream milk.

Delhi’s estimated 40 lakh litres a day (LLPD) organised liquid milk market is dominated by Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Private Ltd (about 23 LLPD, of which 14 LLPD is sold in pouches and the rest through token-operated vending machines), Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation or ‘Amul’ (10 LLPD), Delhi Milk Scheme (three LLPD) and private brands such as ‘Paras’ and ‘Gopaljee’ (1.5-2 LLPD each).

In Mumbai, the major players are cooperatives including ‘Amul’ (six LLPD), ‘Mahananda’ (five LLPD), and ‘Gokul’ and ‘Warana’ (four LLPD each), besides the State-owned ‘Aarey’ (two LLPD) and Mother Dairy (1.5 LLPD). Kolkata’s pouch milk market is much smaller and basically divided between the State Federation (running its own separate Mother Dairy), Metro Dairy and Amul, which do 2.5-3 LLPD each.

Consumers in Bangalore have so far been spared from any price increase. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government under Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa there has, instead, announced a subsidy of Rs 2 for every litre of milk delivered by farmers to the State Federation, so as to cover their increased production costs.

Dairies blame the substantial increase in feed costs over the last one year for their decision to hike milk prices.

In Tamil Nadu, farmers are currently paying about Rs 7.75 for every kg of compounded concentrate feed with 18 per cent protein content.

This is as against Rs 6.35 a kg a year ago.

The Gujarat cooperatives are currently charging between Rs 7.4-7.8 a kg for feed with 20 per cent protein, compared with Rs 6.2-6.4 a kg at this time last year.

Feed manufacturers, in turn, attribute higher costs to reduced domestic availability of oil-meals, following a huge jump in exports.

During April-July this year, oil-meal shipments, at 18.66 lakh tonnes (lt), were almost twice the 9.70 lt of the corresponding four months of 2007.

For the latest recorded week ended July 26, the wholesale price index for oilcakes stood 49.45 per cent higher year-on-year, with the corresponding annual increase being 15.78 per cent for cattle-feed.

More Stories on : Dairy & Dairy Products

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