Mumbai: 1,811 Aarey stalls face uncertainty

Aarey stall owners protesting outside the dairy commissioner’s office in Worli, on Monday

Aarey stall owners, working under the Brihanmumbai Milk Yojana, on Monday gathered outside the office of commissioner, Worli Dairy, Mumbai. The Aarey centre owners, backed by the Brihanmumbai Doodh Yojana Kendrachalak Welfare Association, are opposing the handing over of Aarey centres to Mahananda Dairy, without taking them into consideration. At 11 am on Monday, around 150-175 ‘Aarey Sarita' stall owners assembled at Worli for a peaceful protest.

The Maharashtra government had established dairies in Aarey, Worli and Kurla under the Brihanmumbai Milk Scheme in the 1960s and built wooden Aarey stalls at various places in Mumbai for milk distribution to provide healthy milk and milk products to people in Mumbai. "Since then, we participated in this service and contributed to it. In the beginning, we used to do sales work at these milk centres and in return we were given a salary by the government," the letter states.

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An Aarey Sarita stall in south Mumbai. File pic

"As per the changed policy from April 1991, the government allotted these Aarey stalls in the name of centre managers and asked us to take care of the maintenance and repair of the centre. For this, the government allowed us to sell milk and milk products in the centre by taking annual rent from us and giving us income in the form of a commission. Since there was no job available during that time, we took up this business on a full-time basis. Later, the remaining stalls were given by the government to the educated unemployed, widows, women self-help groups and ex-servicemen and they also sincerely contributed to this service of the government and cooperated with the government. We have raised our children with the money we get from the service… we have educated them well and put them to work. We have not joined any other business or job as we continue this initiative of the government," the letter reads.

The protesting stall owners claimed that they entered this business at the age of 16-20 years, and are still doing it. "We have reached the age of 50-90 today. Among us, there are more women and there are many widows. Most of the centre workers are suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, or cancer. Sadly, the children of many Aarey stall owners have left us after studying, growing up and getting good jobs and are now staying away from us. Our entire future depends on the income of this centre and besides this, we have no other source of financial income," said Pradip Shedge, an Aarey Sarita stall owner also a member of the Brihanmumbai Doodh Yojana Kendrachalak Welfare Association.

The stall owners, in their letter, claim that they have been maintaining and repairing the milk centre allotted to them for the last 40-50 years and alleged that the government closed many schemes due to its incompetence and lack of political will.

"Similarly, this government milk scheme was gradually phased out. Therefore, the good quality milk, lassi, ghee, masala milk, butter, pedha, srikhand, etc. available at the milk centre were automatically stopped. The government is distributing the land of these dairy farms to big industrialists and various private companies favoured by the government at a very nominal rate. The government has decided to hand over the Aarey centres to Mahananda Dairy, without any consideration for the Aarey stall owners who were the main link between the customer and the government for the last six decades and have nurtured Aarey centres like their own children. Currently, Mahananda Dairy is in deep financial trouble and all its workers have filed a court application for VRS as they have not received their salaries for several months," the letter states. According to Shedge, the government, under the guise of handing over the 1,811 Aarey centres to Mahananda Dairy, is looking to hand them over to the National Dairy Development Board (Anand, Gujarat) for 30 years at a nominal rent of Rs 1 per year. "We need cooperation to foil this organised conspiracy and expose this injustice," Shedge said.