Milk supplies in Mumbai affected due to deluge

Floods in various parts of western Maharashtra and closure of national highways between Mumbai and Kolhapur has affected the supply of about eight lakh litre milk to the city and its surrounding areas. Apart from Mumbai, Kolhapur is hit with the supply of vegetables, fuel, milk and medicines.

Milk supplier like Gokul, Warna and Chitale are the worst affected. Prakash Kutwal, secretary of Maharashtra state Milk producer and processers welfare association told DNA that the need of Mumbai is 80 lakh litre while the current shortage is eight lakh litre. "The Gokul, Warna and Chitale supply milk from flood-affected Sangali, Kolhapur and Solapur districts. Gokul supplies six to 6.5 lakh litre of milk every day to Mumbai and remaining milk by other players," said Kutwal. "This is not a big shortage so the people of Mumbai should not worry. Besides, we do keep the additional stock of milk that can meet the demand for the next three to four days. In the next two-three days, the flood will recede," Kutwal added.

Gokul, which is a major milk producer in Kolhapur has managed to deliver a certain number of milk pouches but restricted the volume of milk bought by each person which is no more than half a litre. Other brands like Amul and Mother Dairy are, however, trying to bridge the shortage.

Trupti Shukla, who resides in Borivali, "It is jarring to think about the situation. Today, we were refused to give more than half litre milk by our usual vendor so we had to opt for Amul packs. When we asked the vendor, what is going to happen in the next three days, he said there will be likely shortage of milk and we had to compromise by using Amul packs."

Indranil Chitale, owner of Chitale milk producer and supplier said that their buffalo stud farm was affected by the flood in Bhilavali in Sangali district. "But they relocated all their animals at the safest place. We provide the majority of our stock of milk to Pune while remaining to Mumbai," Chitale said.

Rajesh Paras, from Balaji Milk (Navi Mumbai), said that they get the Gokul milk from Kolhapur while unpacked milk from the nearby areas. "We are supplying the unpacked milk in place of packed Gokul," said the owner of Balaji Milk Supplier.

Sandesh Yadav runs a provision store in Worli. "Fortunately, we had Aarey as our backup. Our store is small so we have to be very cautious for the next three days. Many shopkeepers who exclusively sell Gokul are facing a loss."