HYDERABAD: Retail milk prices might not be cut, though the global prices have been falling.

National Dairy Development Board chairman T. Nanda Kumar said on Friday, that private dairy firms were buying lesser milk than ever, owing to the free falling global prices.

He said cooperatives have been absorbing larger milk stocks and have been keeping prices stable for now. He was speaking to reporters at the IIL-organised seminar on Control of Diseases in Ruminants here on Friday.

Talking on milk prices, he said, “There is a surplus globally. Here cooperatives are buying more than they did previously although private dairy firms have cut down their purchases.

But to drop consumer prices means dropping support prices for farmers. And we are not doing that now.”

Mr Kumar also said that Hyderabad-based Indian Immunologicals Limited was planning a new animal vaccine manufacturing facility in Puducherry.

“We have bought a 30 acre parcel of land. It is like an insurance for us. We will start the new facility once demand goes up,” he said.

IIL currently has units in Gachibowli, Shamirpet and Ooty. IIL CGM G.S. Reddy said that the company had released the country’s first vaccine for Blue Tongue disease affecting sheep and goat.

Mr Reddy also said that the company was working on six other vaccines for diseases in animals, which might take another two to three years for release.

Mr Nanda Kumar also said that the NDDB was taking up artificial insemination of cows under the Rs 2,242 crore-World Bank funded National Dairy Plan.

However, he said efficiency of insemination was quite low in the country. “Success rate is quite low when compared globally,” Mr Nanda Kumar said.