Losing Flavour
In April this year, Mehsana Dairy, the fourth biggest union of India's largest milk cooperative, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF, which owns brand Amul), announced that it would break away from the parent cooperative to register as a multi state cooperative and sell its products under the brand Dudh Sagar. The reason given by the Mehsana Chairman was lack of adequate patronage from GCMMF. Mehsana Dairy has been at loggerheads with GCMMF ever since its former Chairman Vipul Chaudhary was removed as GCMMF Chairman after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014. Three months later, the revolt has died out, and the milk federation's Chairman, Ramsinh Parmar, and Managing Director, R.S. Sodhi, dismiss the threat as a political gimmick.
"Just before elections, Mehsana always announces that it wants to split and become a multi state cooperative, but the hype dies out after elections. The truth is that it can't survive without the Amul brand," says Parmar.
The root cause of the rift has been politics between the state's Congress and BJP arms that have been using the milk unions as their vote banks. "The Mehsana chairman had ambitions of becoming the GCMMF chairman. Since he was backed by the Congress, he wasn't favoured by the ruling BJP. This reflected in the union's balance sheets, milk procurement decreased, the federation didn't pick up its
