After Nandini Row In Karnataka, Now It's Amul Vs Aavin In Tamil Nadu

In a fresh flashpoint involving India’s dairy corporations, Tamil Nadu’s (TN’s) Chief Minister (CM) M K Stalin on Thursday asked Union Home Minister Amit Shah to instruct the Gujarat-based dairy behemoth Amul to cease milk procurement activities in TN immediately.

Clearly, for Gujarat-based Amul, South India is not turning out to be an ‘utterly butterly delicious’ market this year.

After facing heat in Karnataka during the elections, the dairy co-operative major is facing opposition in TN against setting up chilling centres and processing plants in the state.

In a letter to Shah, Stalin sought his intervention in directing Amul to desist from milk procurement from the milkshed area of Aavin (under the ownership of the Tamilnadu Co-operative Milk Producers’ Federation) with immediate effect.

The resistance from Aavin and Stalin comes after a row with Karnataka’s local brand Nandini last month. Pro-Kannada sentiments were on the boil during the state elections after Amul on April 5 announced its entry into the fresh dairy market in Bengaluru by introducing fresh milk and curd, which proved costly for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Assembly polls.

Until now, Amul was just selling its products through its outlets in TN. However, recently, the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union (Amul) has utilised its multi-state co-operative licence to install chilling centres and a processing plant in Krishnagiri district and planned to procure milk through farmer producer organisations and self-help groups in and around Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Vellore, Ranipet, Tirupathur, Kancheepuram, and Tiruvallur districts in the state.

The CM stressed it has been a standard practice to allow co-operatives to prosper without encroaching upon each other’s dairy-producing areas.

“It has been a norm in India to let co-operatives thrive without infringing upon each other’s milkshed area. Such cross-procurement goes against the spirit of Operation White Flood and will exacerbate problems for consumers, given the prevailing milk shortage scenario in the country. This act of Amul infringes upon Aavin’s milkshed area, which has been nurtured in the true co-operative spirit over decades,” the CM said in his letter.

He voiced concerns that this move by Amul would foster unhealthy competition among co-operatives involved in procuring and marketing milk and dairy products.

“Regional co-operatives have been the cornerstone of dairy development in states, and are better equipped to interact with and nurture producers and cushion consumers from arbitrary price hikes,” he wrote.

In TN, like in other states with strong dairy co-operatives, a three-tier dairy co-operative system has been functioning effectively since 1981 for the benefit of rural milk producers and consumers.

Within the ambit of the Aavin Co-operative, 9,673 milk producers’ co-operative societies are functioning in rural areas. They procure 3.5 million litres per day of milk from about 450,000 pouring members.