Price Revision in MilmaMilk&Milk Products.

The price revision in Milma has since become a perpetual problem being faced by Keralites as the trend is always towards revising upwards.Never a downward trend in proce revision even if the prices in market are lowered. The price revision is carried out from time to time based on the proposals submitted by Kerala Co-Operative Milk Marketing Federation.Ltd. The revision is necessitated whenever ErnakulamRegional Co-OperativeMilk Producers' Union put forward their proposals. The Unions always comes up with proposals to help Milk farmers in rural&Urban areas. Enakulam Milk Union has 4 dairy plants at Thripunithura,Thrissur,Kottayam&Kattapana besides the Edappally Plant which is exclusively responsible formanufacturingGhee,SterilizedFlavoured Milk,Peda,Icecream,YogurtEtc. The main Objectives of the Federation is to look into the following factor: 1)To channelise surplus milk from the rural areas to urban deficit areas in order to maximise the returns to the producers&provide quality milk&milk products to the consumers. 2)To carry out the activities for promoting Production,Procurement,Processing&marketing of milk &Milk products with a view to ensuring economic development of farming community. 3)To build up a viable DairyIndustry in the State. 4)To provide constant market&stable price to the Dairy farmers for their produce. Out of the above Objectives,stress is being provided for just in the upward revision of prices on the pretext of helping the producers viz Milk farmers. The criterion generally applied for the revision of the prices of Milk &milk products are 1)Increase in the prices of cattle feed.2)Increase in the price of oil&fuels. Let us discuss how far the above two factors in the upward revision of Price is justified. 1)Price of CATTLEFEED.: ------------------------\ While this is right to certain extent,the arguments in this regard is not fully justfied for the following reasons: 1)In rural areas farmers do not use Cattle feed exclusively to feed their cattle.They allow the cattle to roam in the villages where large deposits of green live grass is available for the animals to feed themselves according to their will&pleasure. 2) no assessment ever made to arrive at the cost of maintaining the cattle individually to support the expenses incurred by the farmers.&details submitted to the Unions for consideration. So the basic factor of assessing the expenses of the Milk farmers itself does not appear to be correct &a realistic yard stick to assess thev expenses is arrives at. 2)The argument that bringing milk from other states has been increased does not seem to be reasonable as depending upon other states for production of milk in our states can not be accepted as a proper yard stick.THIS ARGUMENT WOULD ALSO PAUSE A BIG QUESTION MARK ON THE STABILITY,INTEGRITY&SELF SUFFICIENCY OF THE STATE. Besides,the prices of Oil&Fuel are being revised downwards also by the Oil Companies whenever the International price of Crude Oil is lowered. This does not appear to have applied to the assessment of cost of bringing milk from other states. In view of what has been brought out above,the criterion &yardstick adopted to revise the price of the upward revision of Milk&Milk products of Milma itself would appear to be wrong &unrealistic. In other words,the factors governing the revision itself suggested by the different Unions needs a thorough scrutiny to ensure how far the proposals have been made in a realistic way. There are different Unions in the Milk producing areas also. If the Unions&the Government ruling the State belong to the same Political Party ,the assessment is easier&in cases where the state is Governed by one Political Party &the Unions are controlled by the Opposition Party ,there appears to be a trend to revise the price upward very frequently. All the factors mentioned above need consideration at every level while revising the price of Milk&Milk products upwards with a view to avoiding excess burden on the shoulders of the consumers in the State of Kerala Sreedharanmundanat 14th April,2014 06-10Hrs(IST)