Ongole: Dairy farmers demand dues from Amul dairy

Ongole: The dairy farmers in the Prakasam district, who provided milk to the Amul Dairy, but not received payments, demanded the government to see their dues are paid immediately.

They staged a protest at the Collectorate and submitted a memorandum to the Joint Collector on Monday.

The general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Raithu Sangham KVV Prasad participated in the protest as the chief guest.

In his address he said that the State government entered in an agreement with the Amul Dairy and encouraged the dairy farmers to supply milk to it by promising a better price. The officials, from the district level to the village level, forced the farmers to supply the milk from November 2020.

As the payments are not done in time as promised, the farmers took the back step and the milk collection centres for Amul in the district dropped from 246 to 130 litres now. He demanded the government should intervene at least now and make the payments to the farmers immediately.

The AP Rythu Sangham district general secretary Vadde Hanumareddy said that besides not getting paid for their work for months, the milk collection agents are facing pressure from the dairy farmers. He said that due to failure of coordination between the Amul Dairy and APDDC, the dairy farmers are facing the issues, and demanded the government to pay the dues to farmers as well as the agents immediately.

Later, Hanumareddy said that they submitted a memorandum to the Joint Collector, who ordered the DRDA PD to look into the matter. He said that the DRDA PD assured them to see the payments are made as soon as possible.