The Madras High Court has directed Tamil Nadu’s state-owned dairy cooperative Aavin to install more milk vending machines in Nilgiris and Kodaikanal, after the court was informed that demand for milk sold through the machines had doubled in the two hill stations.
The direction was issued by a special bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and G K Muthukumar during a hearing on Thursday. The vending machines are part of a pilot initiative intended to provide an alternative to milk supplied in plastic sachets.
Aavin had installed automatic vending machines with a capacity of 200 litres each at two locations. The machine at the Aavin Hi-Tech Parlour on Poet Thiagarajar Salai in Kodaikanal began operating on August 16 and was selling about 40 litres of milk a day, according to information presented to the court. The machine at Uzhavar Santhai in Charing Cross, Ooty, opened on August 17 and was selling between 3 and 6 litres daily.
The pilot followed an earlier direction by the same special bench in August to revive milk vending machines in Nilgiris and Kodaikanal. Such machines had been in use before milk distribution shifted towards plastic packets, according to the report submitted during the proceedings.
Amicus curiae T Mohan told the court that demand for milk through automatic vending machines had doubled in recent months. The submission indicates substantially different levels of use between the two locations, with the Kodaikanal machine recording considerably higher daily sales than the Ooty installation.
Aavin, however, told the court that its sales had declined because private milk suppliers continued to distribute more than 3,000 litres of milk a day in plastic packets. The court consequently impleaded private suppliers, including Arokya, Hatsun and Nandini, along with others, as party respondents in the proceedings.
The court observed that consumers would have fewer alternatives if packaged milk was no longer available, saying, “Once you ensure that the packaged milk is not available then people will not have any other choice but to buy from the vending machines.” The observation came as the bench considered the relationship between the availability of packet milk and the performance of Aavin’s vending-machine pilot.
The case places a public milk-distribution system, competing private supply networks and the use of plastic packaging within the same court-monitored process. For residents and visitors in the two hill stations, the immediate issue is the availability and location of vending machines, while for the authorities the proceedings involve expanding the pilot and addressing the continued supply of packaged milk.
The next steps will depend on Aavin’s response to the court’s direction to introduce more vending machines and on the participation of the private milk suppliers newly added to the proceedings.
