The members of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRSS) and Hasiru Sene staged a protest in Karnataka’s Mysuru district, near Deputy Commissioner's (DC) office on Thursday, December 30, urging the state government to order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the allegations of adulteration of Nandini Ghee — a product of the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) which is a government enterprise.
The KRRS and Hasiru Sene are prominent organisations that have in the past taken up the farmers’ issues and have organised protests and other movements in Karnataka. The protesters asked the state government to conduct a detailed inquiry regarding the unearthing of fake Nandini ghee manufacturing units in Mysuru, Bengaluru and several other districts of Karnataka. A few such rackets were busted by the police and the Food Safety and Control department recently.
The protestors alleged that insiders of KMF are involved with racketeers along with milk union officials. The protesters demanded the government to act swiftly by conducting a CBI probe into the allegations.
“Such measures are a must to protect profit-making cooperative institutions like milk unions across the state and it is also important to regain the faith of milk producers,” the protestors said. “The government should know that lakhs of farmers' families make livelihoods out of selling milk to KMF,” they added.
The protesters also demanded that the Mysuru Milk Union Limited authorities withdraw their order on restrictions of sale of raw milk from milk dairies or milk procurement centres from January 2023, as it is detrimental to the interest of primary milk producers cooperative societies across the district.