Rs 90 cr advance to Milkfed to pay dairy farmers

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today directed the finance department to make available a short-term advance of Rs 90 crore to Milkfed for clearing pending payments of dairy farmers.

He also ordered Milkfed to chalk out a comprehensive policy to suggest ways and means to ensure uniform milk prices across the state, according to an official release.

The instructions were issued at a meeting with a delegation of Progressive Dairy Farmers Association (PDFA) here at his official residence this afternoon.

The chief minister constituted a four-member committee, headed by MD Milkfed Manjit Singh Brar, with Director Dairy Development Inderjit Singh, Secretary Animal Husbandry Karnail Singh, and president PDFA Daljit Singh Gill as its members, for this purpose.

The committee has been mandated to evolve a time-bound action plan to implement uniform milk price structure in order to remove the glaring disparities between milk prices prevailing in different districts.

Earlier, the MD Milkfed apprised the chief minister that the fall in milk prices was primarily due to lower milk procurement than their processing capacities by private players.

He pointed out that Milkfed's share in total procurement of milk from dairy farmers was 20 per cent while the remaining 80 per cent was supposed to be lifted by private companies.

But failure of these companies to lift the remaining forced Milkfed to enhance its quota of milk procurement by another five lakh litres daily at remunerative prices to assist dairy farmers.

Expressing concern over the reported adulteration of milk and milk products, the Chief Minister emphasized on the need to crack down on unscrupulous elements who were playing havoc with the lives of innocent people.

In response to a demand of the delegation, Amarinder asked his Chief Principal Secretary to set up at least three more food testing laboratories to bring efficacy in the system of checking adulterated food items.

He asked the Financial Commissioner Cooperation to take all possible steps to strengthen the cooperative milk unions so as to enhance the production of milk and its processing at the Milkfed plants in the state.