Convert Ongole Dairy into coop society

Ongole: The Ongole Dairy, which has a glorious past is now lost its sheen and fame, due to the selfish decisions made by the people in management, allege employees. They are demanding the government to immediately intervene to protect the organisation by converting the dairy into society under Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act, 1964 and pay the dues of salaries and other benefits.

The dairy, which enjoyed profits and support from the farmers, gradually entered into loses after the management converted the dairy from mutually aided cooperative organisation to a private limited company. The employees made several allegations of corruption and partiality on the then chairman Ch Srinivasa Rao, AO J Parasuramaiah and others and demanded the government to withdraw them immediately, along with the release of funds to revive dairy.

The government sanctioned Rs 58 crore and released Rs 35 crore as immediate fund and also appointed the managing director of Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Cooperative Federation, as the chairman and the district joint collector and joint director of animal husbandry department as members.

However, the leaders of employees union, requesting anonymity, said that the efforts made by the new committee and the CEO didn't helped the dairy to come over the debts.

They said the dairy have to pay them the salaries, EPF, ESI and others for five months to a total of around Rs 7 crore. They alleged that after the CEO Jagdish Rao, who was appointed by the chairman and members resigned, the AO J Parasuramaiah became the in-charge CEO and restarted corruption activities with his aide K Sivarama Krishna, a temporary staff.

The workers alleged that the AO and his team process the bills, voucher payments of their people and also pay salaries to people who do not come to the office. They demanded the government to see the chairman of the dairy to focus on the diary activities and complete the process of converting the dairy into cooperative societies act.

Joint director of animal husbandry department and member of dairy committee V Ravindranath Tagore said that Parasuramaiah was removed from the in-charge post earlier but now resumed charge after the resignation of Jagdish Rao.

He said they have collected the NOCs from the people who lent to the dairy and submitted them to the court for approval to convert the dairy from the company into society. He said that he and the joint collector will look into the dairy matters and take necessary action soon.