HYDERABAD: At a time when milk has been exempted from GST and dairy brands are set to pass on benefit to consumers, Vijaya Telangana, a dairy brand owned and run by Telangana State Dairy Development Cooperative Federation (TSDDCF) has hiked the prices of milk from Saturday.
Vijaya Telangana dairy, with a processing capacity of about 4 lakh litres of milk, supplies about 4 lakh litres daily. But, the firm has increased the price by `3 on whole milk and `1 on toned milk, effective from Saturday.
TSDDCF procures about 3.2 lakh litres of milk daily and supplies about 3.5 litres in Hyderabad market alone. This is not the first time Vijaya Telangana has hiked prices this year.
“We have increased the milk procurement price for farmers earlier and also the operational expenses have risen. We have raised rates only to make it viable and it has nothing to do with GST,” said Praveen Kumar, a senior official from Vijaya Telangana.
Besides supplying milk, Vijaya Telangana also produces value added products like lassi, buttermilk, flavoured milk and others.
While still it hasn’t changed the price of value added products, increasing milk prices is set to give other diary players, both public and private, an opportunity to further penetrate the dairy market, which according to dairy sector insiders say sells 15 to 18 lakh litres daily. Amul, Mother Dairy, Jersey, Heritage and others are the market leaders in Hyderabad. Already home-grown dairy brand Heritage Foods has reduced the price of value added products like doodhpeda and milk cake by `30 per kg to pass on the GST benefits.