ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: Pakistan, the sixth largest milk producer in the world, actually produces 17 billion litres per year but more than double that quantity of diluted, adulterated and contaminated milk is consumed in the country. Untreated milk is purchased at Rs20 per litre from dairy farmers but packed milk is sold by local and multinational companies at Rs72 per litre.

These startling revelations were made by members of the National Assembly during a public hearing of the Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue when Pakistan Dairy Association (PDA) opposed imposition of RGST on packed milk. A representative of PDA said the RGST would take packed milk out of the reach of most consumers. He claimed that companies purchased milk from milkmen at Rs36-48 per litre and sold at Rs68 per litre that included the packing cost of Rs14 per litre and door-to-door collection cost.

This was contested by PML-Q parliamentarian Faisal Saleh Hayat who said he himself was a milk producer and was selling milk to one of the companies at the rate of Rs20 per litre. He said the packed milk companies were making unreasonable profits and supplying unhygienic product which issue needed to be looked into thoroughly by parliamentarians.

The PDA representative later changed his position saying the purchase price of the milk he was talking about was “at the factory gate”. He said all the milk companies were listed companies and earned a profit of 4.5 per cent which could be verified from the State Bank and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

Khwaja Muhammad Asif of PML-N referring to a study presented to the University of Cambridge revealed that Pakistan produced 17 billion litres of milk and consumed 38 billion litres and anybody could explain how it was doubled. He said that companies mixed urea and other contaminations in the milk. “Pakistanis are drinking white poison in the shape of packed and unpacked milk”.

He said the report also said that Nestle earned the highest profits on milk in Pakistan when compared to its business in other countries and had invested the lowest on research and modern technology in Pakistan. He said multinational companies did not maintain the same quality standards they did in Europe, America and Africa because in Pakistan they had captive consumers.

The PDA representatives asserted that they used 102 tests to maintain quality in Pakistan and the product supplied by all registered companies was fit for human consumption. He said the Lahore High Court had got tests verified from international laboratories recently and found it meeting the quality standards.

PML-Q’s Riaz Fatyana said during proceedings of a parliamentary committee on food adulteration that government laboratories had found that milk companies were adulterating it with bleaching powder, urea and muddy water and that milk supplied by none of the companies was fit for human consumption. He said his own investigation had revealed that the most of the adulterated milk came from military farms in Okara. The supply of adulterated and substandard milk was naked cruelty with the people and the government should seriously look into it. The loose milk available with milkmen was much better, he said. Bushra Gohar of ANP said the food adulteration was a serious issue, but it should be expected that imposition of RGST would improve the milk quality. She said she was also concerned that profits of the milk companies were going out of the country. Rashid Godil of MQM said there should not be RGST on essential items, but the government should also revisit its investment policy and make these companies to abide by social responsibilities by setting up schools and hospitals out of a percentage of their profits.

Faisal Saleh Hayat said the owners of milk companies had set up their own NGOs to get tax concessions by making donations to their own companies in the name of social welfare.

When a representative of the Nestle company contested this, Mr Hayat challenged him to say Nestle did not make donations to welfare institutes and schools owned by shareholders of Nestle.

Nestle’s representative later confirmed that the family of Yawar Ali was a shareholder in Nestle which also contributed to Grammar Public School owned by members of the family and Lahore University of Management Sciences where another family member Babar Ali was a director.

He, however, said that such donations did not exceed 10 per cent of the total donations and the rest of the 90 per cent went to other welfare organisations which had nothing to do with the company.