In a bid to bring its losses under control, the Goa Dairy has shut down its cattle feed plant and has decided to hand it over to the state government.
Milk farmers from across the state gave their nod to a proposal in this regard during the 51st annual general body meeting (AGM) of the Goa State Milk Producers Union held at Curti-Ponda on Saturday.
Goa Dairy’s administrative committee chairman Parag Nagarsekar informed that during the financial year 2022-23, the losses of the dairy have increased to ` 7.68 crore as against ` 6 crore during the financial year 2021-22.
The chairman said that milk business of the dairy has been running into profits but the cattle feed plant was causing a loss of around ` 60 lakh per month. Secondly, due to an outstanding amount of ` 12.27 crore to raw material suppliers, the dairy was finding it difficult to run the plant as raw material supply was affected. After closure of the sugar factory, the dairy was not getting proper supply of molasses required for cattle feed and all this made running the plant non-viable.
Taking note of the same, the dairy had decided to shut down the cattle feed plant in July 2023 and urged the state government to take over it.
The chairman further informed that the dairy had laid several conditions for takeover including maintaining same rate of the cattle feed to the farmers as offered by the dairy, taking care of around 26 workers of the cattle feed plant and settling payment of ` 12.27 crore of the raw material supplier. This issue was placed before the AGM on Saturday and majority of the farmers agreed to the same, Nagarsekar said.
The chairman said that after closure of the cattle feed plant, the dairy has utilised its additional staff on security duties in the Goa Dairy area and private security service has been terminated. Through this dairy is saving around ` 5.50 lakh, he said.
Speaking about the new initiative taken by the Goa Dairy for the milk farmers, Nagarsekar said that the dairy will purchase two mobile ambulance vans to attend to the emergency cases related to cattle and milk farmers. Dairy companies have also decided to appoint two more veterinary doctors.
Chairman Nagarsekar also announced that the dairy has decided to release the milk incentive to the farmers within two to three months, which presently farmers are getting after 6 months or even later.
Goa Dairy’s AGM which started at around 11 a.m. culminated at around 3.30 p.m. Out of around 160 societies across the state, chairmen of around 74 societies were in attendance.
