Election season seems to have brought some temporary relief to consumers in Gujarat in this festive season. Home grown dairy giant – Amul – will not immediately increase milk prices in the poll-bound state.
The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) on Saturday hiked milk prices of its two variants – full cream milk (Amul Gold) and buffalo milk by Rs 2 a litre across all markets in all states of India except Gujarat.
After March and August, this is the third time that Amul has increased milk prices in the country. But in its home state, the dairy major has avoided price hikes.
Sources in the federation said apart from logistic reasons, there are political reasons as well behind the decision of not increasing milk prices in the state. “We don’t want milk prices to snowball into a political issue in the state,” said a source close to the development.
Sources, however, did not rule out price hike in Gujarat once the poll process in the state gets over.
It is worth mentioning here that almost all the heads of district dairy unions of Gujarat who are board members in GCMMF, the apex body of all the co-operative milk unions in the state, are politically aligned with the BJP.
“We will not increase milk prices in Gujarat for a couple of months,” said RS Sodhi, managing director of GCMMF. Sodhi attributed the hike to the increase in fat prices which he said have increased to Rs 500 per kg from the earlier range of Rs 300 to Rs 350 per kg.
From Saturday morning, milk prices were increased in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Uttar PradeshRajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and all other major cities and towns where Amul sells its liquid milk variants. In the full cream milk variant, popularly known as Amul Gold, price of half-a-litre pouches have been increased from Rs 62 to Rs 64 per litre whereas that of one litre pouches have been increased from Rs 61 to Rs 63 per litre. Price of buffalo milk has been increased from Rs 64 to Rs 66 per litre.
Outside Gujarat, Amul sells nearly 35 lakh litres per day of full cream variant whereas buffalo milk sales count for nearly 4 lakh litres per day.