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Crying foul over spilt milk: Report tomorrow
Was a state-owned milk processing company throwing away tens of thousands of litres of milk every week? And if so why?
The answer will be known tomorrow when a three-member committee hands over its report to Livestock and Rural Community Development Minister Arumugam Thondaman.
Collecting milk for Milco. Pic courtesy www.milco.lk
The minister said he appointed the three-member probe committee comprising an additional secretary and advisors, following allegations that the state-owned dairy company Milk Industries of Lanka Company Ltd (MILCO) was throwing away tens of thousands of litres of excess milk every week.
Earlier, Ministry Secretary K.M.T. Kendaragama said in a statement, “Our initial findings on this incident were that the milk disposed of was spoilt and could not be processed. However, further comments will be possible only after I have all the facts before me from the inquiring team. If the inquiry reveals any wrongdoing on the part of any official, I would not hesitate to take action against those responsible.”
The statement came after trade unions charged that as much as 30,000 litres of milk were disposed of every week in areas close to the MILCO’s main factory at Ambewela because the plant did not have the capacity to process the excess milk.
MILCO, which has factories in Ambewela, Polonnaruwa, Digana and Colombo, is the sole state-owned dairy products company in Sri Lanka. Its main factory in Ambewala can process about 110,000 litres of milk per day. The Polonnaruwa factory has the capacity to process 30,000 litres and the Colombo factory 55,000 litres. The Digana plant’s capacity is 12,000 litres.
Union leaders said excess milk from Polonnaruwa, Colombo and Digana was sent to the Ambewela plant for processing, but the plant there could not take more than 110,000 litres per day and therefore tens of thousands of litres of milk ended up in the drains.
They said the company purchased a litre of milk at Rs 50 from farmers but threw away Rs 150,000 worth of milk every week and this practice had contributed to about Rs 600,000 loss to the company every month.MILCO Chairman Sunil Wickremesinghe declined to comment on the allegations.
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