‘Nandini will make Gujarat’s Shrikhand, if Amul…’, Karnataka CM Bommai

“If Amul makes Mysore Pak, Nandini will also make Gujarat’s Shrikhand,” the chief minister said as quoted by Hindustan Times. 

He said, “Shortly, we are going to overtake Amul because Nandini has got all the products that Amul has. During the Siddharamaiah government in Karnataka, milk production was 64 lakh liters only, while it has increased to 84 lakh liters during my time now.”

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, state party chief DK Shivakumar and general secretary KC Venugopal have earlier visited Nandini Milk parlor in Bengaluru. He termed the flagship brand of Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) as “the state’s pride.”

Opposition parties have been latching on the Amul vs Nandini row in the poll-bound state and the leaders of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) have been making statements that the Amul is not entering the state.

Amul had recently announced that it will sell dairy products in Bengaluru following which Opposition Congress and the JD(S) expressed their protest.

The opposition Congress and the JD(S) said the BJP wanted to ‘kill’ Nandini by allowing Amul in Karnataka. They also expressed fears that a scarcity of Nandini products would be created to make way for Amul to take over.

The Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government, however, denied the charge saying that there was no threat to Nandini from Amul.

The KMF which sells milk under the ‘Nandini’ brand is one of the cheapest milk in the country. A comparison shows that consumers purchasing one liter of toned milk have to shell out ₹39 in Bengaluru whereas for Amul sells one liter of toned milk for ₹52 in Gujarat and ₹54 in Delhi.

A liter of full cream milk costs ₹66 in Delhi and ₹64 in Gujarat, while the ‘Nandini’ brand full cream mil costs ₹24 for 450 ml and ₹50 for 900 ml.

KMF is able to supply milk at a such low price as it gets subsidies from the government. The Karnataka government has given around ₹12,00 crore incentives annually according to reports.

Karnataka is slated to go to Assembly polls on May 10 and the counting of votes will take place on May 13.