Pune: Once again, the milk supply remained disrupted in several pockets of the city on Wednesday. However, the dairies mentioned that the disturbance in the amount is due to restricted timings for retailers shops which were 10 am to 12 pm. At the same time, the delivery time for the milk is morning 6 to 8. It is likely that in the coming days of the coronavirus lockdown, the supply of milk will remain affected.
Lockdown hits milk supply
"The situation in Aundh, Sanghvi and Pimple Gurav is worse as the milk is not available. The normal and local dairies are also out of milk," said Nupur Sharma, resident of Aundh-Sangvi.
Another resident of Aundh, Meghana Dekhane, also echoed the same views. She said, "There were less amount of milk available and not the regular brands we use. Many of my neighbours were not able to get milk."
Long queues due to restriction in timings
Another resident of Karve Nagar mentioned that due to limited timings of the shops, there were long queues near these shops. She said, "The shops are open for only two hours. Therefore I had to make two trips to get the milk as there was a long queue in front of the shop."
The coronavirus lockdown in the city has become stricter from April 20 to 27 and shops for the essential commodities are opening for only two hours. These restricted timings have created a problem as the milk is usually distributed to the retail shops in the morning from 6 to 8.
Shripad Chitale, the partner of Chitale Dairy, said, "The problem has started due to the revised timings. The usual time for the milk delivery at retail shops is 6 am to 8 am while the shop's timings are from 10 am to 12 pm. Therefore, as the shops are closed due to curfew, the distributor is unable to deliver milk to some areas. Due to this reason, the demand for milk from distributors has reduced by 10 to 15 per cent."
He further said, "It is likely that milk supply problem at retail store continues till April 27. Due to the timing issue, we have already submitted the letter to the concerned official asking timings for the shops to be 6 am to 10 am or 7 am to 11 am."
Fall in milk demand
Dr Vivek Kshirsagar, Managing Director of Katraj dairy, said, "Since it is summertime and these retail shops do not have enough infrastructure to store the milk for another four or five hours, they usually do not take the same amount of milk as earlier. Secondly, due to the restricted timings, it becomes more difficult to deliver to the retails shops in some areas. The overall demand for milk has reduced to 30 per cent since the coronavirus lockdown as many restaurants, café and sweet shops are closed. With new lockdown orders, the demand for milk has further reduced by 10 per cent."
