Spouting of milk in Hatton, a political conspiracy - Minister Thondaman

by P.Krishnaswamy

The spouting of 15,000 litres of milk on the streets of Hatton town Wednesday, purportedly as a mark of protest by distressed farmers, was apparently a political conspiracy to discredit the Government, Minister of Livestock and Rural Community Development Arumugam Thondaman told the media on Thursday.

The Government is well on its way to achieving self-sufficiency in milk by 2016 under the Mahinda Chinthana program. MILCO, which comes under his Ministry, is working round-the-clock to provide every assistance to dairy farmers, he said.

The so-called 'distressed farmers' whose milk production was allegedly not purchased by their regular purchasing companies should have approached him instead of spouting the milk in the open street, shocking the onlookers who included mothers and children, he said.

He was at Kotagala , near Hatton, when it happened and he could have arranged the purchase of the milk had he been approached, he said.

There had been no instances up to that moment when MILCO had declined to purchase milk from farmers whose produce had not been purchased by their regular purchasing companies. Some of the eight private companies engaged in collecting milk through the local farmers' societies had suddenly suspended the process. MILCO and the NLDB are working three shifts to handle the excess produce, the Minister said.

The quantity of milk produced in the Eastern Province has dropped from about 50,000 litres per day to 15,000 litres in January because these companies had stopped purchases.

In spite of many shortcomings, mainly the 50 - 60-year-old processing machinery at their four factories, MILCO is currently handling the implementation process for nearly 300,000 litres per day. They have chilling facilities to preserve about 320,000 litres at the 77 centres.

Their purchases have increased by 75,000 litres per day and they have requested some private companies for facilities to process about 50,000 litres, he said.

The implementation process of programs to modernise machinery are under way and will be completed in about 2-1/2 years. MILCO and the NLDB will be strengthened with more modern machinery, collecting arrangements and all other facilities to cope with the increasing farmers' produce, he said.

MILCO (Pvt) Ltd. Chairman Sunil Wickramasinghe and senior officials of the Ministry were present at the media briefing.