Farmers up in arms against Vijaya Dairy in Adilabad

The cost of the milk is usually credited with bank accounts for every fortnight. However, the bills were not cleared for two months due to dearth of funds, causing inconvenience to farmers.

Adilabad: Farmers are up in arms against Vijaya Telangana dairy accusing it of delaying payment of bills relating to milk sold to the State-owned dairy for two months.

Officials said that 3,116 farmers contribute nearly 8,000 litres of milk to Vijaya Telangana dairy in several parts of erstwhile Adilabad district every day. The dairy has nine procurement centres such as Nirmal district headquarters, Kaddampeddur, Degaon in Bhainsa, Adilabad, Echoda, Bhela, Utnoor, Asifabad and Luxettipet in Mancherial district to gather the milk from the farmers. The cost of the milk is usually credited with bank accounts for every fortnight. However, the bills were not cleared for two months due to dearth of funds, causing inconvenience to farmers. The farmers had on Monday dumped milk on the road in protest of delay in paying the bills by the dairy in Adilabad town for the first time in recent times.

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“Vijaya Dairy owes me Rs.21,000 for buying milk for two months. I am unable to buy fodder and meet other expenses,” Gajananan, a farmer from Gudihathnoor mandal said. Bandevar Ashok, another farmer of this mandal said that they were reeling under financial crisis due to the delay in payments of the bills by the dairy.

Farmers regretted that they were losing credibility of banks for skipping EMIs of their loans availed by depending on income from the dairy sector. They stated that their smalltime dairies were being declared as non-performing assets and requested officials to take steps to sanction the bills at the earliest.

When asked, Telangana Vijaya dairy deputy director K Madhusudan Rao told ‘Telangana Today’ that bills worth Rs.3 crore were pending. Efforts were being made to clear the bills in a day or two, he said.

Meanwhile, the dairy farmers are facing a severe shortage of fodder supplied by the government at subsidized prices. They are forced to buy the fodder in the market at exorbitant rates. Consequently, they are unable to make profits in the dairy sector.

It is learnt that a fodder manufacturing unit, established by the previous government in Gadwal is dysfunctional for the last six months. Production of the fodder was stalled, affecting the farmers. The farmers urged the government to take steps to repair the unit and ensure uninterrupted supply of the fodder.