Pune (Maharashtra), Jul 21 (IANS): Hundreds of farmers on Tuesday emptied tankers and cans containing thousands of litres of milk on the streets in Sangli, Kolhapur, Jalna, Hingoli, Solapur and Pune demanding an increase in milk procurement prices.

Hundreds of activists led by Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) President Raju Shetti took to the streets all over the state, especially in some of the key milk-producing regions of western Maharashtra, and stopped milk tankers and milk tempos transporting milk to towns and cities.

"The rural economy has been hit hard by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The dairy industry is a key supportive sector in the rural economy, providing livelihood to lakhs of farmers. But due to the lockdowns, milk consumption is down by over 40 per cent and milk is being converted to butter or skimmed milk powder," Shetti told IANS.

Due to the increasing production of butter and milk powder, the stocks are increasing and the prices are further dropping and have currently reached Rs 220 and Rs 280, respectively, he said.

With growing stocks of butter and milk powder, the dairy owners are not ready to accept raw milk from the farmers and consequently they get barely Rs 18-20 per litre, resulting in a crisis in the dairy sector, Shetti explained.

"We have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his urgent intervention to prevent dairies from shutting down, and have made several demands which can avert the crisis and help safeguard the milk producers of the country," said Shetti.

The demands are: The government should purchase and maintain buffer stocks of 30,000 tonnes of milk powder, provide Rs 30/kg subsidy for milk powder export, stop imports of milk powder, completely withdraw GST on all dairy products -- which ranges from 5 per cent to 12 per cent -- till the pandemic situation is over to enable people afford and consume more milk products.

Supporting the agitation, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) President Ashok Dhawale said that the farmers are demanding a price support of Rs 5 per litre, which is very justified as production costs have catapulted.

"Presently, the price of milk has dropped below the rate of a bottle of water which is an insult to the farmers. The previous Maharashtra government had assured a support price of Rs 5/litre, but now the rate of milk has crashed by half for the farmers," Dhawale said.

The AIKS also slammed what it terms as "anti-farmer" decision of the Centre to reduce import duty on milk powder from 60 per cent to 15 per cent, which led to imports of 10,000 tonnes and consequently the milk powder prices fell steeply by half from Rs 320/kg, and more so, since 150,000 tonnes of milk powder was already in stocks in the country.

Dhawale said the milk agitation concerns not only Maharashtra, but all the eight crore milk producing farmers who churn out 195 million tonnes of milk as per the government's official figures.

The AIKS' Coordination Committee -- a pan-India platform with more than 250 farmers' organisations -- has warned of a more intense nationwide agitation if the milk farmers' demands are not met before August 9.

Earlier on Tuesday, SSS activists at many locations persuaded the truckers to stop milk delivery and join the agitation, but when they didn't cooperate, their trucks were stopped and emptied on the roads.

Wherever the transporters cooperated, the milk was distributed for free to the poor, slumdwellers and pavement dwellers, said an SSS spokesperson.