Central Dairy Co-operative Association Still Sticking to Its Protest Guns

It is now a week that Central Dairy Co-operative Association Ltd Nepal (CDCAN) has been protesting to demand the implementation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives' decision to hike milk price.

The ministry decided to increase milk price by Rs 4 per litre, dividing the benefits between farmers and dairy industries. However, Dairy Development Corporation (DDC) made an increment of Rs 2 per litre of milk.

As a result, CDCAN is staging protest programmes.

CDCAN chairman Dhaka Ram Aryal said talks regarding milk price are going on and if they fail, the association will conduct another protest programme.

CDCAN director Lok Bahadur Khadka said that the problem was not regarding the commercial milk packet prices but the need to hike the price of raw milk that is sold by the farmers. "It is we who need the larger hike," he said. As per its protest programme, CDCAN has halted dairy products distribution from August 21.

The ministry had directed DDC to hike the milk rate from August 19 but DDC just made a fragile increment of Rs 2 per litre which does not the meet the directive of the ministry.

When DDC appeared reluctant to implement the new rate, dairy cooperatives association started protests since August 18. CDCAN, the umbrella organization of farmers and milk cooperatives has planned to stop all dairy supplies from Friday and padlock DDC's central office and regional offices. The association has also demanded its representation in the DDC board and a mandatory contribution of Rs 0.5 per litre in Dairy Development Fund.

CDCAN representatives said, "Farmers should get Rs 2.76 hike per litre of raw and dairy industries Rs 1.24 per litre." They also voiced their anger at the government's use of force to disrupt their protest programmes.