Mother Dairy on Monday announced its decision to hike milk prices by Rs 2 per litre in Delhi-NCR market from tomorrow.

This is the fifth time the prices have been hiked this year by Mother Dairy, which is one of the leading milk suppliers in Delhi-NCR with volumes of more than 30 lakh litres per day.

The dairy has increased the price of full-cream milk by Rs 2 to Rs 66 per litre, while toned milk rate has been revised to Rs 53 per litre from Rs 51 per litre.

Double-toned milk rate has been increased to Rs 47 per litre from Rs 45 per litre. Mother Dairy has decided not to raise prices of cow milk and token (bulk vended) milk variants. The hike in milk prices will hit household budgets. Mother Dairy attributed the hike in prices to increase in the company’s procurement cost of raw milk from dairy farmers.

“It is an unprecedented year for the dairy industry. We have been witnessing a significant increase in demand of milk and milk products from both consumers and institutions, even after festivals. On the other hand, procurement of raw milk has also not picked up after Diwali as was anticipated,” PTI quoted the company as saying.

The procurement prices of raw milk have gone up by about 24 per cent over the last year due to higher input costs and heatwave conditions, it pointed out.

“This stress on the raw milk prices is being felt across the industry, putting pressure on the consumer prices. In our commitment to continue paying remunerative prices to farmers to ease the impact, we are severely constrained to revise consumer prices of select variants of milk in Delhi NCR effective from December 27, 2022,” Mother Dairy said. As a responsible organisation, the company said it has always endeavoured to strike a right balance between farmers and consumers. “…therefore, we have been passing the increased input cost to our consumers partially on select variants and in a phased manner.” Mother Dairy passes on about 75-80 per cent of prices paid by consumers to the milk producers.

The company has taken several round of price increase in the current calendar year. The last hike was on November 21, when it increased prices of full-cream milk by Re 1 per litre and token milk by Rs 2 per litre in Delhi-NCR market. Before that, Mother Dairy had in October increased prices of full-cream milk and cow milk by Rs 2 per litre in Delhi-NCR and some other markets in North India.

Rates were raised by Rs 2 per litre for all variants in March and August as well. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets milk under the Amul brand, is also a major player in the Delhi-NCR market. It sells nearly 40 lakh litres per day. Milk output in India, the world’s largest producer, is around 210-220 million tonnes annually.