PONDA: A section of milk supplying societies on Monday called for replacing Goa Dairy administrator at the earliest warning that the fate of dairy will take a turn for the worse, if their demands are not met.
The chairmen of four milk supplying societies, namely Anup Desai, Vaibhav Parab, Gajanan Bagkar and Vishwas said they feared that Dairy will go the beleaguered Sanjivani Sugar Factory way, if a better administrator is not put in charge of running the operations.
Pointing out an experienced resource persons are required to improve the company, they said with the current administrator the dairy is facing losses.
They also demanded that Goa Dairy should be run in a transparent manner, while citing a number of issues that are currently hampering its functioning.
They also said some Board of Directors (BoDs) and the administrator had made false claims, about Dairy making profits.
“Both have claimed that Goa Dairy earned profits at the AGM (annual general meeting) but then if that is the case, why did the farmers not get the share of profits in the form of dividends, bonus and price difference. One month has past since the AGM and we haven’t been paid the share of profits,” they informed.
Anup further cited that the Board of Directors and administrator had hiked the cattle feed rates due to which it appears on paper that Goa Dairy is in profit.
“But this cattle feed prices are paid by the farmers and not the actual profits. Even if there were profits, why has it not been paid to the farmers, as decided in the AGM,” added Anup.
“We have seen that BoDs as well as administrators have failed to run Goa Dairy efficiently or earn profits in their tenures. So if the government continues appointing administrators having no knowledge of dairy business, then the company will become a white elephant and destroy the livelihood of the farmers,” Anup said.
The chairmen added that many of the other resolutions passed by them at the AGM have not been fulfilled by the administration. They gave the example of how the administration had appointed eight employees on regular basis, when they had opposed this pointing out that they already had excess staff and moreover the company was in a weak financial position.
On that note, they pointed out that the administration should have instead focused on filling the vacancy for the much needed veterinary doctor position.
They further added that one doctor had retired last month.
The chairmen referred to the functioning of a rival milk dairy, which is selling around 45,000 litres of milk in Goan market with only around 11 employees.
They further alleged that contractors are threatening Goa Dairy officials claiming to be the supporters of some ministers.
“AGM had demanded blacklisting these contractors as they are dictating their own terms, but still they are having Goa Dairy contracts. This shows that the administration has no control over them.”
Anup claimed that the milk supplying farmers are getting Rs 18 paisa per litre while the contractors, who are selling milk, are getting Rs 4 as the margin per litre.
“This shows who are benefiting from Goa Dairy,” Anup quipped.
The chairmen further stated that there are around 14 milk marketing contractors with Goa Dairy and some of them haven’t cleared their payments to the tune of lakhs of rupees. They complained that in some cases, the outstanding amount is as high as Rs 13 lakh, which the administration has failed to recover.
“There is a rule in Goa Dairy wherein only one or two vehicles of a contractor are hired for marketing of milk. However, here, we have cases where more than five tempos are hired from a contractor for marketing. This exposes the functioning of the administrator. Marketing of milk should be done by Goa Dairy officials, which will be beneficial for the company instead of these contractors,” added Anup.
On a different note, the chairmen also questioned why the quality of cattle feed had not been maintained, which in turn affects the quantity of milk given by the cattle. They asked who should be held responsible for this and other issues.
For instance, they pointed out cattle feed manufacturing is getting halted as raw material is not obtained on time. They alleged that this was because Dairy gets raw material from same set of contractors and that this raises doubt of any “setting with Goa Dairy and the particular contractor”.
