The government had decided to set up the service centers away from the district- headquarters to provide government services to people without hassles.
Demonstrations and strikes for and against setting up the centers in four Tarai districts – Mahottari, Sarlahi, Bara and Rautahat districts – have thrown life out of gear as the country’s lifeline Mahendra Highway remains disrupted.
About 25,000 liters to 30,000 liters of milk produced by farmers in Bara, Parsa, Sarlahi, Mahottari, Dhanusha, Chitwan and Makawanpur districts remains stuck causing huge losses to the farmers, who had been exporting milk to India through the Dairy Development Corporation (DDC) for the past three months.
DDC began exporting milk to the Bihar State Dairy Federation in Patna, India from 15 November last year as an alternative market after the Koshi floods disrupted supply routes to Kathmandu and other parts of the country.
“Exports of milk to Patna had completely ended milk holidays providing huge relief to the farmers who were complaining against 18 days a month of milk holidays,” said Ajab Lal Yadav, general manager of DDC, told myrepublica.com on Monday. Milk holiday refers to the days when the DDC does not buy milk from farmers.
Yadav said the DDC had earned a profit of Rs 3.2 million during the three months by exporting milk to India and at the same time supplied excess milk to Nepali market.
“Some 18,000 liters of milk worth Rs 450,000 and cheese worth Rs 2 million --which were ready to be exported – also remain stuck at Hetauda Dairy Development Project’s chilling centre due to highway obstruction,” added Yadav.
More than 40,000 dairy farmers in seven districts bordering India are affected by the strike.
The DDC has been collecting about 300,000 liters of milk through its Dairy Distribution Projects in Biratnagar, Hetauda, Butwal, Kohalpur, Lainchaur and Balaju.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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