Nobody Haggles With a Packet of Milk. That Is Why Its Price Matters.

Pick any morning in Bengaluru and follow the milk. Before the first cup of coffee is made, a packet has been torn open in a kitchen, and then another, and then another, until the numbers stop being about kitchens at all. The Bangalore Milk Union, BAMUL, which procures for Nandini across Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara, collects about 17.3 lakh litres of milk a day, according to ICRA's October 2025 rating note. Poured into half-litre packets, that is nearly 35 lakh packets, every day, from one union, in a city where Nandini is not the only name on the shelf.

The wider picture is larger still. "We procure around 92 lakh litres of milk daily, and the Karnataka market consumes around 45-50 lakh litres per day," Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) managing director M K Jagadish told Business Standard in November 2024. Whether that makes Bengaluru one of the thirstiest cities in the country, I could not find a published ranking to say so, so I will leave that title unclaimed.

What I can say is that this is the one purchase most of us make every day without a conversation. I have spent enough evenings in this city haggling over autos to appreciate it: nobody haggles with a packet of milk. The price is printed on it. That is exactly why a change in that number travels further than almost any other headline.

Verghese Kurien, who built the cooperative model behind Amul, knew why milk is different. "Milk is the only commodity which has to be collected twice a day, every day of the year," YourStory quotes him as saying, and for that reason, in his words, "No other system will work for milk."

On 6 October, the Karnataka Cabinet approved a rise of up to ₹8 a litre in Nandini milk. If the full amount is passed on, the blue packet of toned milk goes from ₹46 to ₹54, according to The News Minute. At the time of writing, that is where it stands. The announcement was held back because the Model Code of Conduct is in force for the Legislative Council elections, with polling on 23 October, so the government is waiting for Election Commission clearance. Revised prices are likely from 1 November, and Chief Minister D K Shivakumar has been authorised to decide the final amount.

The proposal followed a request. On 22 September, a delegation of milk unions met the Chief Minister and asked for ₹8 to ₹10 a litre on both procurement and retail prices, ThePrint reported from PTI. They cited the cost of feed, fodder, medicines and maintenance, along with crop losses from the drought, and said prices had not been raised for about a year and a half.

Where the money goes matters as much as the amount. Under the proposal, ₹6 of the ₹8 goes to producers and ₹2 to the unions, though OneIndia reports the final formula has not been settled. The unions say they pay farmers ₹35 a litre for toned milk, against ₹41.50 in Andhra Pradesh, ₹41.80 in Kerala, ₹41 in Maharashtra and ₹42.24 in Tamil Nadu. These are the unions' own figures, as cited in the PTI report. If the whole ₹6 reached farmers, Karnataka's ₹35 would become ₹41, level with Maharashtra and still short of the other three.

If approved, this would be the fourth rise since July 2023. The earlier ones were announced at ₹3 in July 2023, ₹2 in June 2024 and ₹4 in March 2025, according to Deccan Herald and Business Today, which adds up to ₹9 a litre. Deccan Herald's report on the 2023 rise carried its principle as the subheadline: "The Rs 3 additional price paid by the consumer will be transferred to the farmer." That is the kind of clarity worth keeping.

The scale explains why it matters. In July 2024, then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, "Now, the KMF is getting one crore litres of milk a day," from a state with 16,000 milk growers' societies, as PTI reported. At that volume, every rupee on the farmgate price is close to a crore of rupees a day, so how any rise is shared is not a technicality.

It also helps to be precise about what kind of market this is. ICRA credits KMF with "market leadership in Karnataka", and in the same note says it is "exposed to intense competition, which restricts its profitability, despite its leadership position in Karnataka." The pressure is sharpest where the farmer sits. ICRA observes that "private dairies procure milk based on the end-market prices, thereby often providing an edge over dairy cooperatives", and the unions themselves listed competition from private dairies for milk among their reasons for asking for a rise. A leader that is also a buyer under pressure has all the more reason to show farmers and households exactly how the extra rupees travel.

None of this means a rise is unjustified. Feed and packaging costs are real, and a farmer paid ₹35 while neighbouring states pay ₹41 or more has a fair case for catching up. What stands out is what the government did next. After meeting the unions, the Chief Minister asked officials to compile ten years of cattle feed prices, the cost of producing a litre of milk, production and sales by district, the volume the unions procure, and procurement and retail prices in neighbouring states, PTI reported. That is exactly the homework the public would like to see.

So here is a modest suggestion, and it holds whatever figure is finally announced. Publish that data alongside the decision. Say plainly how the increase is split between farmers and unions. Announce the new farmgate price a month later, so the farmer's share can be seen to arrive. And review prices at a fixed interval, so the next rise comes as a schedule rather than a surprise.

Nobody haggles with a packet of milk. The least a city can do in return is explain the price once, in full, before the new number gets printed.