New Delhi, Aug 28: The Rs 375-crore Paras group on Wednesday came down heavily against state-owned Mother Dairy accusing it of enjoying monopolistic benefits from the government and held it responsible for the recent milk crisis in the national capital. "After Mother Dairy faced short supply of liquid milk to the tune of 3 lakh litre per day, it failed to inform other suppliers about the crisis and the areas where it was failing to reach resulting in sudden hardship to the people," Paras group Marketing head K K Bhadra said here.

In order to meet the shortage, Paras and other corporate players in the sector, diverted supply line for preparing powder milk to tide over the crisis in the city. But as Mother Dairy failed to inform about the shortage at its FMCG retail outlets as well as booths, the citizens faced hardships, Bhadra said.

He accused Mother Dairy of enjoying monopolistic status in milk supply due to Government patronage despite its dependence on state milk cooperatives. Bhadra said the Government had given it special benefits which other corporate entitities did not enjoy.

Bhadra alleged Mother Dairy does not have even one packaging unit of its own that resulted in questionable quality of its milk.

He said Mother Dairy should allow sale of other brands of pouch milk at its vending centres facing short supply. Bureau Report