Amul milk would come costly to housewives in metropolitan cities including Delhi from today. GCMMF, the dairy cooperative giant which owns Amul has increased it rate in various categories ranging from Rs 1 to 2.
While Amul Gold would now come for Rs 40 per litre in place of Rs 38, Amul Taaza fetches Rs 30 per litre instead of Rs 29.The price of Amul milk was first increased in Gujarat last week where Amul is headquartered.
Talking to Indiancooperative.com one of the GCMMF officials said “we are indeed caught in bind as interest of cooperative members and general consumers are at loggerheads. Amul is a cooperative where interest of members (farmers) is paramount. If we do justice to them, the public in general suffers”, he said on condition of anonymity.
In the last six year starting from 2006, GCMMF has hiked Amul price six times leading to doubling of price per litre. There is no doubt, prices of cattle-feed and other inputs have increased and the task of earning profit for the farmers has been tough.
Yet a cooperative operates in the milieu of society and it progresses only when the society prospers. The difference between a cooperative and corporate business model lies in restraining the price-line—a fact GCMMF would ignore on its own peril.
Amul’s business model is followed blindly by smaller cooperatives which soon follow suit. Many of them operate on smaller scale with reduced over-head expenditure and thus every time their hike could not be justified. Amul’s role being the the leader assumes greater significance thus.