Ahead of the festival season starting next month, the Mumbai Milk Producers Association (MMPA) has announced a wholesale price hike of Rs 2 per litre for buffalo milk in the city from September 1, an official said here on Saturday.

The decision was unanimously taken at a meeting of the MMPA presided over by its vice-chairman Ramesh Dube, and the move is likely to trigger a price rise in all milk-related foodstuffs during the festivals of Ganeshotsav, Navratri, Diwali etc. over the next few months.

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MMPA committee member C.K. Singh said the price of buffalo milk – which is sold by over 3,000 retailers in the country’s commercial capital – will be increased from Rs 85 per litre to Rs 87 per litre, and will remain in force for six months, after which it will be reviewed.

“With the price hike by Rs 2/litre – or from Rs 85/litre to Rs 87/litre – from September 1, the retail rates are expected to shoot up to Rs 90/litre or even up to Rs 95/litre depending on the localities and local demand,” Singh told IANS.

This will be the second hike coming after March 1 when wholesale buffalo milk price was hiked from Rs 80/litre to Rs 85/litre, hitting the domestic budgets of the poor and middle-class families hard.

The latest price hike will also adversely hit the demand for milk which increase by 20-25 per cent during the festival season when large quantities of sweetmeats are prepared.

All the MMPA members felt that since the price of milch animals as well their food items like dana, tuvar, chuni, chana-chuni etc. have gone up by an average 20-25 per cent, besides steep hike in the rates of grass, hay, pinda etc., the rate of milk should also be increased.

Mumbai consumes over 50 lakh litres of buffalo milk daily, of which more than 700,000 litres are supplied by the MMPA through its chain of dairies and neighbourhood retailers, and farms spread in and around the country’s commercial capital.

Incidentally, in February this year, all the major cow milk producers’ associations in Maharashtra, along with other major branded producers, had hiked the price of cow milk by at least Rs 2 per litre.

They are expected to follow suit with the MMPA’s latest price hike putting further pressure on domestic finances from next month.