Milk will pinch the consumer as Amul hikes prices by Rs2

After vegetables, now milk will also pinch consumers, as Gujarat's largest milk producer, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) marketing dairy products under the brand 'Amul' on Tuesday announced a pan-India hike in milk prices by Rs2 per litre.

"We have increased prices of our various brands by Re1 to Rs2, which will come in to effect from December 30 in Gujarat and Delhi and by January 3 in other parts of the country," GCMMF managing director RS Sodhi said.

"Prices of our Gold and Shakti brand will be hiked by Rs2 per litre and Tazza and Slim and Trim by Re1," he said.

Post the hike, price of Amul-Gold will be Rs34 per litre in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and in few districts of Gujarat, while prices of its Shakti brand shall be Rs30, Taaza Rs25 per litre and Slim and Trim Rs23 per litre.

"In Mumbai, the prices of our Taaza brand shall only be increased by Re1 per litre, as the price of Gold is already ruling at Rs34 per litre," he said.

"In Kolkata, we are hiking the prices of Gold by Rs2 and Re1 of Taaza brand respectively from January 3," Sodhi said.

This is the third time in the year when the milk prices have been hiked by the GCMMF. Earlier, the federation had hiked the milk prices in February and July this year.

"We had to increase the milk prices as the dairy farmers have been reeling under the burden of inflation. The prices of feedstock, labour, fuel including gas have all gone up," Sodhi said.

"In regards to Gujarat, we are hiking milk prices in Ahmedabad and Saurashtra region only. It will be the call of other member unions of the federation (individual dairies) to hike milk prices in their respective districts," Sodhi said.

GCMMF supplies over 27 to 29 lakh litres of milk per day under the brand Amul in all the three metropolitan cities of New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

With a network of 13 district cooperatives, engaging 29 lakh dairy farmers spanning 12,000 villages of Gujarat, the GCMMF has daily average collection of 9.10 million litre, and has turnover in excess of Rs8,000 crore. The total milk collection by the federation in 2009-10 stood at 3.32 billion.