Zonning system eased for school milk

The business opportunity should be even greater following the government's decision to serve free milk to all primary students for 260 days a year, starting from this coming academic year.

During recent years, only students from Grade 1 to Grade 4 received free milk and for just 230 days a year.

"The Cabinet has already removed the zoning conditions," Education Minister Jurin Laksanawisit announced yesterday.

Jurin was speaking after the Cabinet considered what action should be taken to solve problems plaguing the school-milk project.

Aside from poor quality of school milk, the project has also seen bidding collusion among milk suppliers. Under the zoning conditions, local administrative organisations did not have many choices from which to select for schools in their areas. They could use only suppliers within a 100 kilometre radius and in many cases the suppliers colluded in the bidding process.

Jurin said a previous administration imposed the zoning conditions.

"Now, we have removed them in the hope of encouraging free competition. We hope to see milk suppliers competing in terms of quality too," he said.

Deputy Government spokesman Puttipong Punnakan said the school-milk project would get an extra budget of Bt1.975billion so that it could cover 1.8 million students in Grade 5 and Grade 6.

Earlier, the Cabinet approved Bt8.4billion for the project that covered only students from Grade 1 to Grade 4.

"We have also planned to inject Bt2.579billion more into the project so the free milk is available to all primary students 260 days a year, not just 230 days a year," Puttipong said.

He said the Cabinet had not yet decided on the proposed change in the ratio of UHT milk to pasteurised milk in the project.

"We have to look into detail first. We have yet to determine the ratio change's impact on small-scale dairy farmers," Puttipong said.

An informed source said that at yesterday's Cabinet meeting, the Industry Ministry reported most milk factories were operating without a licence.

"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found that at least three milk factories have failed to meet good manufacturing standards," the source revealed.

According to the source, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has ordered FDA and the Industrial Works Department to strictly monitor milk manufacturers.

In a related development, Department of Special Investigation (DSI) deputy director general Colonel Suchat Wong-ananchai said DSI officials had already looked into alleged bidding collusion among milk suppliers for the school-milk project.

He said DSI would ask the Anti-Money Laundering Office to check the financial transactions of school-milk project suppliers and relevant companies. "We will check cow-milk purchases of each milk manufacturer."