A team of the Odisha Milk Farmers’ Association led by its chairman Rabi Behera met Chief Secretary AP Padhi at the Secretariat and urged him to include milk and milk products like paneer and curd in MDM and ICDS scheme to check distress sale of milk in the State.
They too requested him to issue a formal direction to the all medical colleges and hospitals to provide only Omfed brand milk and milk products to their patients.
The team apprised the Chief Secretary that about 2.77 lakh farmers supply around 6.25 lakhs of milk to the Omfed every day. However, the Omfed has slashed the procurement of milk 31 per cent since March 31, 2016. As a consequence, milk farmers are losing `52 lakh every day.
Besides, the entire milk farmers’ community incur a loss of `1.5 crore every tenth day, observed as a milk holiday by the largest milk procurer of the State.
The association argued that when milk and milk products would be given to 55 lakh shoolchildren in MDM scheme and 1.4 crore women and infants in ICDS schemes, there would be no problem of distress sale of milk in the State.
Besides, the association also demanded that the minimum support price (MSP) of `30 per litre of milk be fixed for milk. The Chief Secretary assured the association all support, said Behera. Among others, association VC Dushasan Mohapatra, secretary Narayan Dalua and executive body member Bijaya Behera were present.