Bengaluru, 2 July

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said the Karnataka Milk Federation -- known for its 'Nandini' brand of dairy products -- has achieved a milestone of procuring one crore litres of milk a day from farmers.

“The milk production in Karnataka was 90 lakh litres a day in May last year. Now, the KMF is getting one crore litres of milk a day. This is a milestone in the history of KMF,” Siddaramaiah said.

He recalled that when he was the Animal Husbandry Minister many years ago, he had handed over management of dairies to milk unions.

The Chief Minister said the State now has 15 milk unions, 15 mother dairies and 16,000 societies of milk growers. He said the quantity of milk in half and one litre milk packets of 'Nandini" has been increased by 50 ML due to the rising milk procurement, and proportionately prices were increased by Rs 2 recently.

“Due to the increase in milk production, we have increased the milk quantity in the packets. This has been done because we cannot say to the milk growers, who are basically farmers, that we cannot procure extra milk they are producing,” Siddaramaiah explained.

He said the opposition BJP did not understand this and started making a hue and cry that the Karnataka government increased the milk price. “The BJP leaders are spreading lies on this issue because I feel that they have no concern for farmers. The government is giving Rs 5 crore a day to the milk producers as honorarium, which is Rs 1,800 crore annually,” the Chief Minister added.