Telangana: Closure of Karimnagar Dairy’s milk chilling centre in Sircilla triggers protests

While the protest continued for four hours at Agraharam, dairy farmers sat on the road along with milk cans in Gambhiraopet mandal

Rajanna-Sircilla: The closure of Karimnagar Dairy’s milk chilling centre triggered protests from dairy farmers, who staged demonstrations in different places of the district on Thursday.

While the protest continued for four hours at Agraharam, dairy farmers sat on the road along with milk cans in Gambhiraopet mandal. On Thursday morning, municipal, district panchayat and industrial officials seized the milk chilling centre in Agraharam of Vemulawada rural mandal, on the ground that the centre has no permission from the Industries department.

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The milk collected from dairy farmers belonging to 145 villages is being chilled in the centre, which was being operated since 2005. About 18,000 to 20,000 farmers are depending on the centre.

Karimnagar Dairy purchased the industry in an auction carried out by the State Finance Corporation in 2005 and has been running a milk chilling centre since then. The dairy is paying tax every year. Dairy farmers and staff of the centre found fault with the officials for seizing the centre without giving any prior notice. Officials informed that they were seizing the centre based on the instruction of a higher officer.

Though the centre was being operated during the last 20 years without any objection, why did the issue of permission come up now, they asked.

Unfortunately, the officials did not allow the staff to take away milk worth Rs 25 lakh that was kept inside the centre. Two days ago, officials demolished the boundary wall of the centre without giving any notice. Similar procedue was followed in the closure of the centre, they alleged.