Over fifty Sanchi cooperative societies across Indore district received signed demands this week as producers push for a fixed per-litre rate and unpaid bonuses.
Thursday brought another round of a campaign that's been building village by village across Indore district. Milk producers walked into more than fifty Sanchi cooperative society offices and handed over signed memoranda, each one making the same basic ask: pay us what it actually costs to run a dairy.
The list of villages involved is long. Baloda Takun, Palakankariya, Kachhalia, Dhaturia, Ratankhedi, Jammudi Hapsi, Boriya, Harnasa, Bhil Baroli, Katkoda, Nandra, Giroda, Gudar, Chatwada, Piploda and Basanda all saw memoranda submitted, alongside a couple dozen other locations. This isn't a single rally outside one office. It's a coordinated push spread thin across the district, hitting cooperative societies one at a time.
The arithmetic behind the protest is simple enough. Cattle feed costs more. So does fodder, veterinary medicine, electricity and daily labour. Farmers say milk prices haven't kept pace with any of it, and dairy farming at current rates is turning into a losing proposition for a growing number of them.
Farmer leader Bablu Jadhav laid out the core demands: a milk price fixed at Rs 12 per fat, immediate clearing of bonuses that are already overdue, and an additional Rs 5 per litre on top of that. He didn't soften the warning attached to it either, saying the agitation would widen and intensify if these demands keep getting ignored.
A sizeable group of local organisers showed up in support across the district's villages, among them Shailendra Patel, Chandan Singh Badwada, Praveen Thakur, Yogesh Sarpanch, Pawan Patwari, Tejkaran, Babu Gadi, Hariom, Bharat Dayal, Arjun Sankhla Solanki and Atish Parmar.
What happens next depends largely on whether the Sanchi network, or whoever sets procurement rates in the state, responds before the campaign spreads further. Right now there's no indication of a formal reply from dairy authorities, and the memoranda themselves function as pressure rather than negotiation. Farmers have made their number, Rs 12 per fat plus a Rs 5 bonus, and they've made clear this is the opening move rather than the whole fight.
For now the protest stays procedural, memoranda submitted, no blockades or milk-dumping reported so far. Whether that changes hinges on how quickly, or slowly, the district and state respond to a demand that's already reached fifty-plus villages in a single week.
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