The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will start providing tetra milk packers to all its in-patients, which can be directly served to the patient instead of serving loose milk in a glass.
This development came a year after Aarey Dairy discontinued milk supply to civic-run hospitals.
Aarey Dairy on August 29 wrote to BMC saying it would not be able to provide the civic body milk supply. The hospitals then locally purchased milk for paediatric patients, pregnant women, and patients on a nasogastric tube (a narrow-bore tube that is passed into the stomach through the nose for nutrition) who needed milk.
The decision to provide tetra milk packs as it is more convenient as there is no need to serve loose milk to the patients. Moreover, tetra packs will help in bringing down possible wastages.
This marks the first time that the central purchasing department (CPD) will oversee the tendering of milk purchases for all civic hospitals. To accommodate the shift to tetra packs, BMC has increased its budget from ₹14 crores to ₹42 crores. Tetra packs of 100 ml and 200 ml will now be included in the procurement.
Officials further stated that they are going to buy tetra packets of 100 ml, 200 ml, 500 ml, and 1 litre wherein 100 ml can be directly served to the patients.
A BMC official said initially, the civic body thought of going ahead with the procurement of milk packets. However, it took four months to finalise the decision to go ahead with tetra packs.
The city’s major hospitals, including KEM, LTMG Sion, Dr RN Cooper, and BYL Nair, along with 16 peripheral hospitals and 30 maternity homes, on a daily average collectively consume 4,000 liters of milk.
The four major hospitals alone require 700 liters daily, and Aarey Dairy previously supplied this milk at a subsidized cost of ₹39 per liter.
A doctor from a civic-run hospital said milk is a crucial part of the patients’ meals. Most of the hospitals were prioritising the patients to serve the milk instead of giving it to all.
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