Two weeks after conducting an internal inquiry into the complaint that employees attached to the south region of the city allegedly facilitated the sale of subsidised full-cream milk, meant for domestic consumers, in the commercial market, the Aavin administration recently transferred four assistant general managers of the marketing department in Chennai.
The AGMs are responsible for monitoring the distribution of milk through cards and retail shops. Close to 4,000 cards of ‘Orange Milk’ in Tambaram and neighbouring areas under the management of the south Chennai region of Aavin have not been renewed for November – December and are suspected to have been used by brokers for the benefit of private shops, according to official sources.
For cardholders, the FCM (orange) milk is subsidised by Rs 14 a litre. The malpractice has caused a revenue loss of approximately Rs 16.8 lakh per month to Aavin. After an increase of milk procurement price by Rs 3 a litre on November 3, the retail price of FCM was hiked from Rs 48 to 60. However, cardholders were supplied milk at `46 per litre. Since then, the Aavin administration has made the submission of a copy of a ration card or Aadhaar mandatory for the renewal of FCM cards.
In an order dated December 20, the Managing Director of Aavin, N Subbaiyan, transferred south region AGM (Marketing) A Sivakumar to Erode District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (DCMPU). M Thamizhan, AGM, North region was posted in the south region and G Sumathi was transferred from the central to the north region. S Sathish Kumar, headquarters AGM has been posted to the north region.
Maintaining that there was no evidence of the involvement of Aavin employees in the misuse of cards, official sources claimed the decision was indeed taken for administrative purposes. Currently, Aavin provides milk cards through which domestic buyers can avail of milk at a subsidised price without any documents. As per data, 1 lakh litre of ‘Orange Milk’ is supplied through milk cards a day.
“Given that FCM is cheaper by Rs 14 a litre, if the milk card is used by a genuine consumer, he would have renewed it. It’s presumptive that cards that were not renewed were not used by the consumers. However, it’s not sufficient enough to act against employees,” said an official. Aavin is also planning to demand ration cards or any proof for renewing milk cards of standardised and toned milk from Jan, added the official.
‘Officials reshuffled for administrative purposes’
Maintaining that there was no evidence of the involvement of Aavin employees in the misuse of cards, official sources claimed the decision was indeed taken for administrative purposes.
