On National Milk Day, this news may come as a sigh of relief for the inflation hit households consuming Amul Milk that the company has no plans of hiking price of the staple necessity in near future. The organisation that sells milk under the Amul brand, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation’s MD, R S Sodhi, stated that there are no immediate plans to raise milk prices.
GCMMF primarily sells milk in the markets of Gujarat, Delhi-NCR, West Bengal, and Mumbai. The cooperative sells nearly 40 lakh litres of the more than 150 lakh litres of milk it sells daily in Delhi-NCR.
Mother Dairy increased the price of full-cream milk by Re 1 per litre and token milk by ₹2 per litre in the Delhi-NCR market earlier this week, citing an increase in input costs.
When asked if GCMMF had any plans to raise milk prices in response to Mother Dairy’s rate increase, Sodhi responded, “There are no plans in the near future.”
However, all markets outside of Gujarat, where assembly elections will be held in early December, saw price increases of ₹2 per litre for both Amul Gold (full-cream) and buffalo milk in mid-October.
The cost of a litre of Amul Gold was raised from Rs. 61 to Rs. The cost of buffalo milk was increased from Rs. 63 to Rs. 65 per litre. GCMMF has increased milk prices three times this year, compared to Mother Dairy’s four increases.
With production of more than 30 lakh litres per day, Mother Dairy is one of the top milk suppliers in Delhi-NCR.
Mother Dairy and Amul both give the milk producers a cut of about 75–80% of the prices that customers pay.
The increase in milk prices came at a time when food inflation was already very high, which had an impact on household budgets.
The increase in prices was attributed by Mother Dairy to a rise in the price of buying raw milk from dairy farmers. “This year, the entire dairy industry is witnessing a huge gap in the demand and supply of milk,” its spokesperson said.
The company noted that the price of raw milk has been pressured by the unpredictable monsoon and the rising cost of feed and fodder, which has reduced the supply of raw milk. Additionally, Mother Dairy reported an increase in demand for processed milk.
“The ongoing mismatch in the demand-supply, even after the festive season, has further led to firming of raw milk prices. We are therefore constrained to partially pass on the impact with revision in consumer prices of certain variants,” the spokesperson had said.
Milk output in India, the world’s largest producer, is around 210 million tonnes annually.
