Mumbai: With the buffalo milk wholesale prices in Mumbai shooting up by Rs5/litre, the industry fears a significant cascading effect as the rise from Rs80/litre to Rs85/litre will remain in force until August 31.
This will be followed by a similar increase in the retail market by the 3,000-plus retailers in Mumbai for the creamy fresh buffalo milk, which would now sell at around Rs90/litre, up from the current Rs85/litre.
These sharp hikes shall be borne by the ordinary consumers not only in the form of dearer plain milk, but also other milk products that are consumed by households daily.
“This would impact, albeit marginally, the rates of a cup of tea-coffee-ukala-milkshakes, etc, served by restaurants, at the ordinary pavement vendors, or in small eateries,” said Mumbai Milk Producers Association (MMPA) treasurer Abdul Jabbar Chhawaniwala.
He said there are many other milk products like khoya, paneer, sweetmeats like pedha, barfi, certain north Indian or Bengali sweet varieties which are milk-based which could witness a price hike now.
Prominent milkman in north Mumbai, Mahesh Tiwari rued that the price hike has come on the eve of certain festivals and also the big fat weddings season, which would be hit by the whole-sale milk price hike from Wednesday.
“The demand for milk and milk products goes up at least 30-35% during festivals and even higher for weddings, marriages and other social events, and the new rates would be applicable,” he said.
There’s a string of festivals like Holi, Gudi Padva, Ram Navami, Mahavir Jayanti, Easter after Good Friday, Ramzan Eid, and others in the next couple of months where the celebration budgets would have to be expanded, says Singh.
Singh said that normally any fluctuation in milk prices in Mumbai is usually followed by an increase in milk rates across the country, too.
On an average, Mumbai consumes over 50 lakh litres of buffalo milk daily, of which more than seven lakh is supplied by the MMPA through its chain of dairies and neighbourhood retailers, through their farms spread across Mumbai.
