FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Team Herald
PONDA: Goa State Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (Goa Dairy) Chairman Rajesh Faldesai on Sunday appealed to the government to provide financial assistance to the Goa Dairy to tide over the financial crisis.
Speaking to media persons after the special general body meeting, Faldesai said that the financial condition of the Goa Dairy became precarious during the tenure of the administrator. It is going through financial crisis since the appointment of the administrator three and half years ago. The Goa Dairy incurred losses to the extent of Rs 14 crore and squarely blamed the administrator, who he added was appointed to look into the affairs of the Dairy.
Faldesai urged the government to provide financial assistance to the Goa Dairy for its survival and also for dairy farmers.
According to Faldesai, sale of milk and cattle feed drastically reduced during the tenure of the administrator due to which the Goa Dairy ran into losses and farmers are now in distress. “In order to bring the Goa Dairy back on tracks, we need to increase our sale to 70,000 litres per day so that farmers can survive and for this we need at least five to six months,” he said.
Earlier, the special general body meeting of Goa Dairy expressed concern over losses incurred by the Goa Dairy and decided to appoint auditors for statutory and internal audit. The meeting resolved to conduct audit of the Goa Dairy for previous financial years on 2019-2020 even as the general body in the past had refused to accept the audit report conducted during the tenure of the administrator. The audit for the year 2020-2021 is in progress while, the audit for the year 2021-2022 will be completed by September end and will be placed before the annual general meeting.
Faldesai claimed that during his tenure the milk sale of Goa Dairy was 70,000 litres per day and was shocked to see that the sale had dropped to 40,000 litres. “Under my chairmanship, the Goa Dairy had managed to increase milk sale by 48,000 litres daily which means increase of 8,000 litres per day.” He adding that by September, the new Board will try to increase the milk sale by 60,000 to 70,000 litres per day.
Faldesai who assumed chairman a fortnight ago said that his aim was to bring the Goa Dairy back on the profit track and reiterated his appeal to the government to provide financial support.
Stating that the Sumul Milk Union Limited is presently competing with the Goa Dairy and offering good rates to farmers, Faldesai cautioned that in case condition of Goa Dairy worsend then definitely Sumul will reduce rates offered to farmers, which will be a bad omen.
Ramesh Naik, a farmer held the government responsible for losses of Goa Dairy and demanded that the government should provide financial assistance of Rs five crore to Goa Dairy for its survival.
