TRS Members Themselves Attack Talasani In Assembly

Telangana Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav faced an embarrassing situation in the Assembly during Question Hour on Wednesday when a TRS member cornered him and disputed his claim that the government-run Vijaya Dairy was functioning effectively.

Replying to a question in the House, the minister had said that the government had plans of modernizing and expanding Vijaya Dairy, the details of which were being worked out. He said that the modernizing and expanding would be funded from the amount of Rs. 13.55 crores allocated for dairy development in the 2017-18 budget.

Yadav also said that earlier Vijaya Dairy could procure only 1 lakh litres of milk, but now because of the incentives that were being offered by the government to the farmers - Rs. 4 per litre of milk - the milk procurement had gone up to 4.5 lakh litres. The burden on the government due to the incentives being given was Rs. 72 crores per annum, he said.

Answering several supplementary questions from the members who were primarily from the TRS benches, Yadav blamed the previous undivided Andhra Pradesh government for neglecting the government-run dairy at Lalapet owing to an agreement with certain private dairies. Yadav also claimed that though Vijaya Dairy products like milk, butter milk, ice cream, sweets etc. were being appreciated all over, the required promotional activity had been lacking in the past.

However, after the formation of Telangana, the government had renamed the dairy as Vijaya Dairy Telangana in 2016 and had initiated a number of measures for its development, he said. He said that now the demand for milk in Hyderabad of 22 lakh litres per day was being met fully, and that the current government was taking up the required steps to promote the Vijaya Dairy products in a big way.

Yadav also claimed that steps were being taken to provide seeds at subsidized rates for growing the fodder for the cattle. And he promised that the required measures would be taken to check the adulteration of milk.

TRS member C Ramesh then disputed the claim of the minister that the incentives being given to the farmers had helped increase the procurement of milk by Vijaya Dairy. He said that farmers were availing thmeselves of the incentives and still supplying milk to private dairies. He wondered why the government was neglecting the development of cooperative milk societies, which were strongly encouraged in Karnataka. He pointed out that the milk and other dairy products being supplied by the private dairies were more in demand than those by Vijaya Dairy, and stressed the need for encouraging cooperative dairy farms.

Another TRS member Srinivas Goud claimed that 50% of the milk being supplied was adulterated, and wanted steps taken to check that. He also wanted the government to consider supplying buffaloes to the farmers along the lines of its sheep distribution scheme.

The minister refuted the charges that the incentives being provided to the farmers were being misused, and that the increased milk procurement by Vijaya Dairy was not due to the incentives being given to the farmers. He also sought the cooperation of the members in ensuring that Vijaya Dairy got the milk supply it needed by dissuading the farmers from supplying milk to private dairies.