BENGALURU: Animal Husbandry Minister K Venkatesh informed the Karnataka Legislative Council that milk price will be increased to meet the demand of milk-producing farmers and protect consumer interests.
Replying to MLC Umashree’s question on dairy farmers’ demand for Rs 10/litre increase, Venkatesh said, “Milk price will be increased soon, and the demand of dairy farmers and interests of consumers will be kept in mind.”
The minister added that meetings were held, and pros and cons related to increasing milk purchase price and its implications on the Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation Limited (KMF) were discussed. “Another round of meetings will be held on increasing milk price and milk procurement, and a decision taken,” he replied.
The minister shared data on beneficiaries and said the government is empathetic towards farmers. He said incentives to 9,04,547 beneficiaries are pending. Of these, there is a pending payment of five months for 8,17,074 milk producers of the general category, two months for 52,467 milk producers of Scheduled Castes and 4 months’ payment for 35,006 milk producers of Scheduled Tribes.
The government is aware that dairy farmers are in distress due to the delay in paying incentives. The pending amount to KMF is about Rs 650 crore. Additional funds are required to provide incentives and a proposal has been submitted to the Finance department for release of funds,” he said, adding that the pending payment will be released soon.
In response to a question from Yathindra Siddaramaiah who asked the state to at least release a share of funds to purchase 10 sheep to the shepherd community as a centre under the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) and also relaunch the Pahsu Bhagya, a subsidy to purchase domestic animals for commercial purpose, Venkatesh said, the matter has been escalated to Chief Minister to accommodate in the budget.