PONDA: Goa Dairy Chairman Rajesh Faldesai has said that accepting the demands of agitating farmers to reduce cattle-feed rates would result in loss of Rs 22.50 lakh per month to the co-operative milk producer.

Addressing the media on Tuesday, Faldesai said that though he had assured the agitating farmers recently to reduce the cattle-feed rates, it was not possible due to various reasons and that the Board of Directors (BoD) also was not ready to accept the demand. 

He said that the raw material prices of cattle feed at Maharashtra and Goa are almost same, that is, Rs 19 per kg. “Besides, this year, the diesel prices, transportation charges and other expenses have also increased due to this reason it is not possible to reduce Goa Dairy Cattle feed rates by Rs 2.50,” he said.

He informed that currently, Goa Dairy cattle-feed plant is earning a net profit of Rs 5 lakh per month and if the prices are reduced then it would suffer losses.

It may be recalled that Goa Dairy had hiked prices of cattle-feed in 2017 following huge loss of Rs 5 crore to the cattle-feed plant.

On the show cause notices issued by the Registrar of Co-Operative Societies to Goa Dairy BoDs, he said, “The Registrar is conducting inquiry and we would face it.”

Giving reasons for the Rs 5.04 crore losses to Goa Dairy cattle-feed plant for the year 2016-17, he said, “This happened because raw material purchase prices were higher compared to cattle feed selling rates of Goa Dairy.”