Mumbai: Hitting the consumers hard, the Mumbai Milk Producers Association (MMPA) has announced a steep price hike of Rs 5/litre of buffalo milk in the city from March 1, an official said on Friday.
MMPA President C.K. Singh said that the price of buffalo milk – which is sold by over 3,000 retailers in the city – will be increased from Rs 80 per litre to Rs 85 per litre, and will remain in force till August 31.
This is the second steep hike coming after September 2022, when buffalo milk price was hiked from Rs 75 a litre to Rs 80 per litre, making the domestic budget of the poor and middle-class families go haywire.
Singh said that the unanimous decision was taken at the MMPA general body meeting late on Thursday.
All the members felt that since the price of milch animals as well their food items like dana, tuvar, chuni, chana-chuni etc. have gone up by 15-25 per cent, besides steep hike in the rates of grass, hay, pinda etc., the rate of milk should also be increased.
Mumbai consumes over 50 lakh litres of buffalo milk daily, of which more than seven lakh is supplied by the MMPA through its chain of dairies and neighbourhood retailers, through their farms spread in and around the country’s commercial capital.
Incidentally, in February this year, all the major cow milk producers’ associations in Maharashtra, along with other major branded producers, have hiked the prices of cow milk by at least Rs 2 per litre.
–IANS