Milk collection from Shantidanda, Biglante halted for a week

By Our Correspondent,Biratnagar, Oct. 10: Due to heavy rains, the Rajduwali section at Maikhola in Ilam near Mechi Highway was damaged and the traffic stopped. After that, milk has not been transported from the two chilling centers of the Biratnagar Dairy Development Project of Dairy Development Corporation, for a week. 

Milk collection centres and cooperative organisations under the chilling centre have stopped collecting milk from farmers as they are unable to supply the milk.

Milk supply from Shantidanda and Biblante milk chilling centre in Ilam has been completely stopped. 

According to the project, the chilling centres have stopped milk collection as there is no condition for milk tankers to reach Biratnagar. 

Hira Bahadur Thapa Magar, acting chief of the Biratnagar-based project of DDC, said that more than 2,500 litres of milk was collected daily from those two chilling centres.

He said, “About 1,500 litres of milk was collected daily from Shantidanda and 1,000 to 1,200 litres from Biblante daily, but now, due to the damaged roads, tankers are unable to reach there, so the collection of milk from farmers has been stopped.”

The road repair work has been stopped since Saturday evening due to the risk of landslides on the highway which is being repaired after the first landslide. 

Pawan Bhattarai, head of road division office, Ilam, said that the repair work will be carried forward only after risk assessment.

Biratnagar Dairy Development Project said that it is uncertain when the road will be repaired and comes into operation, and there is no immediate situation where tankers can go to the chilling centre and bring milk from other roads. 

It is apparent that the milk produced is wasted if the farmers are not able to sell the milk on the eve of Dashain festival. 

DDC, Biratnagar paid dues of Rs. 170.8 million to farmers Farmers who had not received payment for milk since last November received payment for five months only this week. The DDC, Biratnagar paid dues of Rs. 170.8 million to the farmers recently.

Farmers again faced more problems when there was no sale of milk due to floods. The DDC had not paid for the milk collected from the farmers since last November due to lack of money. 

The DDC received loan of Rs. 600 million from the Nepal government with conditions. The Biratnagar project received Rs. 160.8 million from it. In this amount, the project has added another Rs. 10 million received from internal sources and paid Rs. 170.8 million to the farmers till the month of March. 

Project chief Thapa Magar said that Biratnagar project still has to pay Rs. 138.9 million for five months except for October. He said that farmers have to wait for some time for the payment of the remaining amount.