As reported earlier Comfed MD Harjot Kaur and Patna daily, Times of India continue to stick to their guns. Mrs Kaur called a hurried press conference after the news paper carried a damning report into the Bihar state milk cooperative federation’s shady and dishonest activities.
The report said the federation was selling a litre of milk for Rs. 33 to 43 in Bihar and supplying a litre of milk for a paltry Rs. 25 to a private dairy in Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh.
As expected, the report has ruffled the federation’s plumes and feathers. However, the MD of the federation Harjot Kaur has described the report as rubbish.
It is worth noting that as per the documents procured by the daily newspaper under the RTI Act , the Bihar state animal husbandry and fisheries dept had been inundated with complaints about the state’s milk unions supplying a huge amount of milk to private dairies in Delhi and Moradabad for production of milk powder.
This knowledgeable sources say had starved the Bihar milk powder plants of enough milk causing a massive financial loss to Bihar. According to complaints, there was absolutely no transparency in the purchase and distribution of coal needed for collection and production of milk in the state. The coal thing has become a major scandal, sources say.
Sources add Comfed and its various milk unions are not forthcoming with necessary information about milk they are supplying to plants outside Bihar.
There are four milk powder plants in Bihar. While the Barauni plant has capacity to process 12 MT, Muzaffarpur and Patna plants can process 10 MT and two MT respectively. The plant that has come up at Biharsharif this year can process 30 MT.