After Pawar’s prediction, Amul hikes milk prices

Ahmedabad : Few days after Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar predicted rise in prices of milk, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) selling its dairy products under the brand name \'Amul\' has decided to hike the milk prices in the state.

We have decided to hike the milk prices of our brands \'Taaza\' and \'Slim and Trim\' by Re 1 per litre, while the prices of our brands like \'Gold\' and \'Shakti\' shall be increased by Rs 2 per litre with effect from February 1 in Gujarat only,\" chief general manager GCMMF R S Sodhi said.

GCMMF has cited rise in input cost of raw material like cattle feed as a major reason behind the hike this year.

Due to increase in input cost, we have to pay more to the milk producers hence the prices rise,\" Sodhi said.

According to Sodhi, majority of milk unions dairies also members of GCMMF like Banaskantha dairy, Mehsana, Kaira, Vadodara and Surat have increased milk procurement price in the past and were presently paying average price of Rs 330 per kilo fat, which is 18 percent higher than previous year.

Still the Gujarat milk prices were lower than other parts of India, Sodhi said.

GCMMF had raised the milk prices by Re 1 per liter in August last citing rise in input cost. The price of its full cream milk shot up to Rs 27 per litre, from Rs 26 per litre post the hike.

With a network of 13 district co-operative milk producing unions, GCMMF has daily average milk collection of 8.4 million litres, and touched a sales turnover of Rs 67,113 million last fiscal, federation official said.
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