Amul-Nandini row: Controversy threatens traditional cooperative spirit of leading cooperative giants

As part of the cooperative spirit, a milk cooperative of a particular state is not supposed to supply milk in other states, which in present case applies to Amul.

Bengaluru: Amid raging politics over the Amul-Nandini milk row in Karnataka, the controversy has put the mutual cooperative principles of the two milk cooperative giants at stake. The row over Amul milk foraying into the Karnataka markets which comes on the eve of the upcoming Karnataka assembly election, has triggered a war of words between the BJP and Congress, which has accused the government of mulling to merge the Karnataka Milk Federation with the Gujarat-based Anand Milk Union Limited (Amul) at the cost of the Kannadigas.

Politics aside, the ongoing row threatens the traditional mutual cooperative principles shared by Nandini and Amul brands over the years. Gujarat-based Amul is the country's leading co-operative Milk Federation while the Karnataka Milk Federation is the 2nd largest Cooperative Milk Federation organization in the country.

As part of the cooperative rule, milk producer boards of other states are not allowed to store milk, set up dairies and process milk in Karnataka, which in the current case, applies to Amul. Likewise, KMF is selling milk only in states where there is shortage of milk on the request and with the consent of the milk boards of the respective states.

Under the same cooperative spirit, KMF has not gone to sell Nandini milk in Gujarat or Amul's base cities, even though it has the capacity to suppply the produce to the cities. The introduction of Amul milk in Karnataka markets is seen as the violation of this cooperative spirit. While Amul milk products like Amul ice cream have been selling in Karnataka for long, KMF is likely to take up the introduction of Amul milk with the Anand Milk Union in coming days.

The KMF officials are expected to ask the cooperative giant to continue the earlier Cooperative system, KMF officials said. Collecting an average of 85 lakh liters of milk daily from 26 lakh rural farmers in the state, more than 150 different Nandini milk and milk products are being provided to the people of the state for the last 4 decades.

The average storage of milk has increased by 6 to 7 percent during the last 5 years. KMF along with other state cooperative societies have a total turnover of Rs 22,000 crore annually through Nandini milk products. Nandini Milk Yoghurt's market share alone is 84 percent, said MD of KMF, BC Satish. KMF is selling milk in Bangalore through online with 2.5 lakh liters of milk being sold daily.

A total of 33 lakh liters of milk is being sold in Bangalore overall. Out of this, the sale of Nandini milk of KMF is 26 lakh litres, KMF officials said. Meanwhile, 'Boycott Amul' campaign has started on social media. The row has escalated in the run of the Karnataka assembly election. The allegation of Kannadigas is that introducing Amul in Karnataka is an attempt to shut down Nandini, the pride of Kannada.

This issue has now led to a fierce tussle between the opposition and the ruling BJP.