Move to divert milk supply order to Hassan upsets Kolar dairy farmers

Not just people in North Karnataka, even those in the south are not happy with the HD Kumaraswamy government’s Hassan-centric approach.
The state got the orders to supply 80 lakh Tetra Packs of 1 litre each to the armed forces (File | EPS)
The state got the orders to supply 80 lakh Tetra Packs of 1 litre each to the armed forces (File | EPS)

KOLAR: Not just people in North Karanataka, even those in the south are not happy with the H D Kumaraswamy government’s Hassan-centric approach. After the people of Mumbai-Karnataka took exception to shifting Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project (KSHIP) office from Belagavi to Hassan , now milk producers in Kolar-Chikkaballapur are up in arms against the government for its ‘Hassan policy’.

The Kolar-Chikkaballapur District Co-Operatives Milk Producers Union Limited (KOMUL) supplies 80 lakh litres of milk (Good Life Tetra Pack) to the armed forces personnel of Northern and Southern Commands every year as per the tender which is monitored by the National Co-Operative Dairy Federation of India (NCDFI).

The Managing Director of Karnataka Milk Federation has reportedly written a letter to NCDFI to divide the supply of 80 lakh litres of milk equally between Kolar -Chikkaballapur Dairy and Hassan Dairy. The milk producers allege that this is being done at the behest of minister H D Revanna.
A senior official of KOMUL said that the recent move will leave milk producers losing business to the tune of `23 crore annually.

The other problem it faces is on how to convert the remaining 40 lakh litres of milk into powder as it will cost `8 to 9 per litre. The estimated loss will be `36 crore, he said.  Meanwhile on Saturday, Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (Narayana Gowda faction)  protested near the KSRTC Circle raising slogans against minister Revanna. They also threatened to launch a stir if the government fails to withdraw its decision.

Another senior official of KOMUL told The New Sunday Express on the condition of anonymity that the Tetra Pack unit commenced in Kolar in 1991 while a unit was started in Hassan two years back. For the past ten years, the KMF has been participating in the tender called by the Northern Command (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh) and Eastern Command (Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya).

The state got the orders to supply 80 lakh Tetra Packs of 1 litre each to the armed forces. Accordingly, KMF has been giving a bulk order to KOMUL since the past ten years. And KOMUL was getting business to the tune of  `45 crore every year, the official said.

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said at a function in Chikkaballapur on Friday that minister Revanna’s contribution to the milk societies is remarkable and blamed the opposition of taking some issues to the media.

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