Mother Dairy has decided to hike milk prices by Rs 2 per litre in Delhi-NCR market with effect from Tuesday, citing rise in input costs.

This is the fifth round of hike in milk prices this year by Mother Dairy, one of the leading milk suppliers in Delhi-NCR with volumes of more than 30 lakh litres per day.

Mother Dairy has increased the prices of full-cream milk by Rs 2 to Rs 66 per litre, while toned milk rate has been revised to Rs 53 per litre from Rs 51 per litre, PTI reported.

Double-toned milk rate has been increased to Rs 47 per litre from Rs 45 per litre.

Mother Dairy has decided not to raise prices of cow milk and token (bulk vended) milk variants.

The hike in milk prices will hit household budgets.

Mother Dairy attributed the hike in prices to increase in the company's procurement cost of raw milk from dairy farmers.

"It is an unprecedented year for the dairy industry. We have been witnessing a significant increase in demand of milk and milk products from both consumers and institutions, even after festivals. On the other hand, procurement of raw milk has also not picked up after Diwali as was anticipated," the company said.

The procurement prices of raw milk have gone up by about 24 per cent over the last year due to higher input costs and heatwave conditions, it pointed out.

"This stress on the raw milk prices is being felt across the industry, putting pressure on the consumer prices. In our commitment to continue paying remunerative prices to farmers to ease the impact, we are severely constrained to revise consumer prices of select variants of milk in Delhi NCR effective from December 27, 2022," Mother Dairy said.

As a responsible organisation, the company said it has always endeavoured to strike a right balance between farmers and consumers. "...therefore, we have been passing the increased input cost to our consumers partially on select variants and in a phased manner.”

Mother Dairy passes on about 75-80 per cent of prices paid by consumers to the milk producers.