Milk price likely to increase

Kolkata, June 17: The West Bengal Cooperative Milk Producers Federation (WBCMP), which recommends the retail price of milk, has submitted a suggestion for a hike to protect the interest of the government dairies.

"We have found that input cost to procure milk has increased Rs 2 per litre since February 2011. The worst hit is state-owned Mother Dairy," WBCMP managing director G Namchu told PTI.

"We have submitted our finding of the additional burden on government dairies, now it is up to the government to take a final call," he said.

There are eight goverment-owned dairies and several processing centres in the state.

Mother Dairy has the largest processing capacity at six lakh litre daily, followed by Keventor's controlled JV dairy. Other state owned agencies have a capacity of processing four lakh litre per day.

Joint venture dairies like Metro Dairy did not require approvals from the government and could take decisions independently, Namchu said.

Retail price of Mother Dairy milk varies between Rs 21 and Rs 27 a litre depending on the category of milk.

PTI