State-owned Dairy Development Corporation (DDC) and other private dairies said they were able to increase the supply of dairy products in the market from Monday. [break]
Siyaram Singh, general manager of DDC, said collection of fresh milk increased to around 190,000 liters on Monday from close to 180,000 liters per day during the strikes. “We expect the collection to improve further to 200,000 liters per day within a couple of days as our chilling centers are collecting fresh milk without any disruption,” Singh told Republica.
DDC has been able to supply around 110,000 liters of fresh milk per day in the capital, up from around 100,000 liters during the street protests. DDC, which commands around 40 percent market share, had been collecting and delivering around 130,000 liters in the capital on normal days before the protests.
Though DDC is facing supply deficit of 50,000 liters daily during this lean season, it stopped procuring fresh milk from Patna since last month in the hope that supply situation will improve in a couple of months with the onset of flush season.
“Daily collection of fresh milk has increased by around 30 percent compared to last year and we hope the collection will further improve with the beginning of flush season. So, we are not planning to resume the import of fresh milk from the India,” said Singh. DDC used to procure around 25,000 liters of milk from Patna until last month to fulfill the increasing demand.
DDC has been collecting fresh milk through 60 chilling centers that stored milk supplied by 900 dairy farmers´ cooperatives. DDC has also been using powdered milk produced from its Birantnagar plant and Chitwan Milk Pvt Ltd to improve the supply of milk.
Ram Kumar Khadka, president of Nepal Private Dairies Association, said supplies of fresh milk which had dropped by 30 percent during the banda has reached to a normal from Monday. According to Khadka, dairies are managing to supply around 40 percent of the total 800,000 liters of daily demands for fresh milk during the lean season.
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