Amul to increase milk prices by Rs 1/litre in Maharashtra

PUNE: Amul, the country’s major milk brand, has decided to increase the prices of its two top-selling brands, Amul Taza and Amul Slim and Trim, by Rs 1/litre from Thursday (February 17) across Maharashtra. Other dairies have decided to increase the price by Rs 3/litre.

“We have decided to increase the price of only these two brands as we have a major presence in them,” said RS Sodhi, chief general manager, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which markets its milk and milk products under the Amul brand. With a daily sale of 7.5 lakh litres, Amul is the leading dairy brand in Mumbai. It procures about 40% of its milk requirement locally while the rest is imported from Gujarat.

Other big dairies such as Warna and Gokul have decided to increase the buffalo and cow milk prices by Rs 3/litre and Rs 2/litre respectively from Wednesday (February 16) in Mumbai. Earlier, dairies in Pune had decided to step up the prices of both buffalo and cow milk by `3/litre from Wednesday.

“We have decided to increase the selling price by only that amount which we have to bear for the increase in the procurement price,” said Mohan Yedurkar, deputy managing director, Warna Dairy. According to the decision of the Maharashtra government, the procurement prices of cow and buffalo milk are set to go up by `2/litre and `2.5 litre from Wednesday.

Milk prices have gone up by `2 in Karnataka from Tuesday. The state government permitted the Karnataka Milk Federation to increase the price following a steep increase in the production cost and a sharp decline in procurement by cooperative milk unions across the state.

The Karnataka government said the increase will enable the milk unions to pay a better remunerative price to dairy farmers across the state.