The strawberry milk that sent 48 schoolkids tetra-packing to hospital in two separate incidents has, little wonder then, politics written all over it.
The Rs298 crore contract for supplying milk to civic school kids was given to a Haryana company
MUMBAI: The milk is indeed flavoured...with a Rs298 crore contract. The strawberry milk that sent 48 schoolkids tetra-packing to hospital in two separate incidents has, little wonder then, politics written all over it. You just have to read the fine print.
To begin with, the contract was awarded by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation through the marketing wing of the Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh controlled by Sachin Ahir, a Nationalist Congress Party MLA. The flavoured milk actually is supplied all the way from Haryana, a fact that raised many an eyebrow in the milk-surplus state like Maharashtra. For the Shiv Sena, the true-blooded sons of the soil and the ruling party in the BMC, the milk from Haryana was obviously not an influx issue. Now, the Congress, seeing an opportunity arising out of the bad aftertaste of the milk contract, is crying foul. It probably had an amnesia attack and forgot that its party in the BMC supported the decision.
“By importing milk from states like Haryana, decision makers are playing with the lives of kids as majority of dairies from Haryana have been accused of ‘manufacturing’ and ‘supplying’ chemical milk to the rest of India,” alleged Anees Ahmed, the state dairy development minister.
The BMC requires 90,000 litres of milk for its 4.5 lakh students who are given 200 ml milk.
Ahmed stressed that had BMC shown interest, state-run dairies like Aarey and Mahanand would have supplied the milk at a much lower cost. The current supplier provides milk at Rs11.5 per 200 ml tetrapack.
“The BMC has been adding newer conditions in the tender for this contract, which has ensured complete exclusion of state-run or private dairies from Maharashtra,” a senior Mahanand officer told DNA. The officer exlained that the condition that milk should only be supplied in tetrapacks was surely a step to block entry of local suppliers as none of them had this facility. “Looking at all these facts, political pressure cannot be ruled out,” said another Mahanand officer.
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