"উত্তর প্রদেশের দুগ্ধ সমবায় পরিচালিত ডেয়ারী গুলোর প্রায় ১৬০০ কর্মচারী আজ ছাটাইয়ের সম্মুখীন"    
  

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Delegates at the 2nd Annual Conference of the IUF-affiliated DEFOI (Dairy Employees Federation of India) held on March 24, 25,  were shocked to hear the latest update of the state government’s indifference to the collapsing dairy co-ops processing plants in the states of Uttar Pradesh (UP)  which is India’s biggest milk producing state.

The PCDF Trade Union Munch in UP which is the Federation of all local trade unions of  the 39 co-ops milk processing plants reported that 3  plants have already been closed and 3 more are facing an acute shortage of milk for want of procurement. More plants (about 14 ) are near to  collapse which will throw thousands of  workers out  of jobs, not to speak of the many small dairy farmers whose milk will have difficulty fetching the same price set by the co-ops.

Over 1,600 members of the PCDF Trade Union Federation are owed up to 26 months’ wages and other entitlements. Milk procurement by the troubled plants from farmers have dropped drastically.

DEFOI observed that the gradual elimination of the co-ops milk processing plants and government inaction allowing them to fail is a means of backdoor privatization of the dairy sector. The dairy industry in India was built up through the co-ops system and it is the pride of India’s Dairy Industry.  This co-op system had increased the daily income of millions of small marginal farmers, created thousands of jobs in processing plants, and made milk affordable as an important source of nutrition to  society.

As the largest producer of milk in the world, India’s annual production is  120 million metric tons  produced by 70 million dairy farmers.  A fifth is produced by 12.4 million farmers in 117,575 village dairy cooperatives and handled by the organized dairies (both cooperatives and the private sector) which operate 770 dairy processing plants throughout the country.

The co-operative sector is organized and regulated by the government and form part of the state sector dairy industry.

In August last year, DEFOI had sent a delegation to attend meetings of the PCDF Trade Union Federation  in 6 districts of UP to show DEFOI’s solidarity.  Clearly, it was felt that more needed to be done. In response to this problem of  the collapsing dairy co-ops, DEFOI launched a campaign to save the co-ops.

President of  the PCDF Trade Union Federation,  Brother R.P. S. Chauhan  said that “this campaign to save the UP dairy co-ops is necessary”.

IUF-A/P Regional Secretary, Ma Wei Pin, brought the greetings of all IUF affiliates, especially dairy sector affiliates to the conference. He was pleased to note that India’s demand for milk is growing faster than domestic supply  and he hopes that milk production would be quickly expanded to meet the demands which should result in more jobs on decent conditions.