Over 25,000 cattle feeders are miffed with Gujarat’s Congress leaders who had accused Surat based SUMUL Dairy of not giving good prices to them but the farmers themselves associated with the Dairy feel they have no reason whatsoever to complain against the dairy.
The Milk farmers were so enraged by the Congress’s baseless accusation that they held a protest demonstration before the collector’s office in Tapi district to show their anger.
However, reacting strongly to the accusation, Sumul Dairy CEO S V Chaudhari said “Sumul is one among the 17 district unions of GCMMF and we are one of the leading district unions that gives remunerative prices to the farmers”.
Meanwhile, a source close to Sumul Dairy has accused Congress leaders of trying to tarnish their image.
“In our management, there are leaders from BJP and Congress who work together. Perhaps our cooperative is the only cooperative which holds the AGM within 17 days of the new financial year”, the source said.
Several days back congress leaders including former Cabinet Minister Tushar Chaudhary and former Gujarat Chief Minister’s son Amarsinh Chaudhary had accused Sumul dairy of not giving good price to the farmers. Later on, they handed over a petition to the Collector.
Several cooperators said what Sumul Dairy’ pays to the cattle feeders is not the issue, it is Congress’s narrow political calculations that are causing tension between the BJP and the Congress leaders; farmers have become just a tool at the hands of politicians, they aver.
“In the span of 2.5 years under the leadership of our Chairman Raju Pathak from BJP we have worked hard to
While highlighting the financial details of the Dairy, SUMUL CEO claimed that dairy total business mix in 2016-17 was 2773.61 crore whereas its jumped to 16 percent and stood at 3234.63 in 2017-18 FY.
“Average milk price is 724.17 + subsidy Rs. 32 per kg = Rs. 756 per kg fat, highest overall in Asia. Assets of SUMUL dairy have increased from 930 crore to 1512 crore. A number of projects including 1000 MT cattle feed plants, 30 MT powder plants, 15 MT bakery plants, 5 llpd dairy plants have been completed in just two years”, he said while recounting the growth of the Dairy.
Sumul is one among the 17 district unions which acts as manufacturing units of dairy products for Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), the marketers of Amul brand of products.
Readers would recall that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated a fully automatic cattle feed plant of SUMUL Dairy at Bajipura village in Tapi District and an ice-cream plant. The event had caught wide media attention.
