Mumbai: In a major blow ahead of the festival season, an official said on Wednesday that the Mumbai Milk Producers Association (MMPA) imposed a Rs 2 per litre wholesale price increase for fresh buffalo milk in the city from September 1.
General Secretary Kasham Kashmere, speaking on behalf of the MMPA, announced that the association’s general body, after a thorough discussion, arrived at a unanimous decision to increase the wholesale price of buffalo milk in Mumbai.
The decision to increase the price of buffalo milk is expected to have a ripple effect on all other types of milk and milk-related items during the upcoming festival season, including Ganeshotsav, Navratri, and Diwali. This calls for strategic planning of household budgets.
C.K. Singh, a member of the MMPA Executive Committee, stated that the price of buffalo milk, which is sold by over 3,000 shops in the country’s commercial capital, will rise from Rs 87 to Rs 89 per litre for six months. After that, the MMPA will evaluate the pricing.
“With the wholesale price hike by Rs 2/litre from September 1, the retail rates are expected to shoot up to Rs 93/litre or even up to Rs 98/litre depending on the localities and local demand,” Singh told IANS.
This will be the second raise in a year, following a hike in wholesale buffalo milk prices from Rs 85/litre to Rs 87/litre, which significantly impacted the home budgets of poor and middle-class families.
The current price increase may enormously impact milk demand, which typically increases by 25-30% during the festival season when vast quantities of sweetmeats are prepared.
The MMPA members believed that because the costs of milch animals and their food items such as dana, tuvar, chuni, chana-chuni, etc., had risen by an average of 20-25 percent, in addition to a significant increase in the rates of grass, hay, pinda, etc., the price of milk should also be raised, Singh added.
Mumbai uses about 50 lakh litres of buffalo milk per day, and the MMPA delivers more than 700,000 gallons via its network of dairies, neighbourhood stores, and farms around the city.
Due to the Lok Sabha elections, all cow and buffalo milk producer groups and branded corporations avoided the customary rise in February- March 2024.
Certain wholesalers and big-branded manufacturers of cow milk in Maharashtra have increased milk prices by Rs 2 per litre.
With the MMPA’s forthcoming price hike, they are expected to follow suit, putting an additional burden on domestic resources starting next month.
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