Fearing Milk Supply Disruption, People Resort To Panic Buying

Long queues were witnessed at milk parlours all over the city on Tuesday evening as the news of disruption of milk supply by maldharis spread. Thanks to the panic buying, most milk parlours put up the sign of “no milk” by late evening. The cattle owners or maldharis, who are on agitation demanding withdrawal of the Bill on stray cattle, have given a call to supply no milk on Wednesday across the state. Nagjibhai Desai, president of Gujarat Maldhari Mahapanchayat has demanded that the government should not harass its members regarding milk supply. He said the strike would be across the state. He said several sarpanches have conveyed to milk mandalis to not supply milk on Wednesday. Milk vans will be off-road and retail milk suppliers too have been told to be on strike. Rushabh Shah, who resides in Vastrapur area of the city, had a tough time searching for milk pouches. On his return from office, in the evening, despite making stops at three milk parlours, he could manage to get only one pouch. Meena Patel wasn’t that lucky. She went to many parlours in Thaltej but all had run out of milk. “Tomorrow, I may have to order tea from a kitli. There’s no milk in my refrigerator,” she said. A GCMMF statement said, “We wish to assure our customers that supply of Amul milk will be normal in Ahmedabad and other parts of the state on Wednesday. All our dairies, milk distributors, transporters, retailers and parlours will be operating normally. There is absolutely no shortage of Amul milk.”