ISLAMABAD: The Governor House Lahore is consuming an unbelievably huge quantity of over 243 litres of fresh milk costing more than Rs28,164 to the public exchequer every day.

Further calculations establish that the Governor House guzzled a total of 88,771 litres of milk worth Rs10.28 million during the past one year, an official document, available with The News, said. A model dairy farm, established at the Governor House to cater for its milk requirements, maintains 25 buffalo and 15 cattle of elite category along with their progenies.

The precise daily consumption of the Governor House comes to 243.2 litres, worth Rs28,164, a letter written by Special Assistant to the Punjab Chief Minister, Chaudhry Arshad Jatt to his boss said.

Apart from the “official use” of milk in the Governor House, produced at this farm, its officers are also sold the product at Rs26 per litre for their domestic consumption. But still it has the huge quantity left because there are less than a dozen officers working there. Such pure milk is available around Rs90 per litre in the open market.

The letter recommended closure of the model dairy farm and proposed that the milk requirements of the Governor House may be met as per the analogy of its provision to the Chief Minister Secretariat Lahore wherein this dairy product is procured on notified rates and prescribed quality from the government livestock farms in order to save the loss being incurred to the government exchequer.

The milking animals are provided to the elite farm through the government livestock farms including livestock experiment stations Rakh Dera Chahl Lahore, Jahangirabad Khanewal and Bahadurnagar Okara, the letter said.

The net loss incurred for the year 2012-13 by maintaining these animals has been Rs10.28 million which is inclusive of the loss into the overall worth of the animals and the operational expenses including the establishment charges, fodder, feed, medicine and other miscellaneous charges.

The letter said that during 2012-13 the milk produced at the model dairy farm has been 88,781 liters. The average cost of milk produced has been estimated as Rs124 per litre, which is very high as compared to Rs46 per litre, the market rate during the corresponding period.

It intimated that the animals are replaced twice annually with the new elite when the production goes down. The replaced animals become non-productive, emaciated and unfit for further breeding, the letter said. A total of 67 animals have been at the model dairy farm during this year. The net loss of Rs4.907m occurred through reduction in average net worth of animals after their replacement from the model dairy farm. The other expense incurred on medicine, concentrate, green fodder, wheat straw, veterinary officer, labour, travelling allowance, fodder supply and transportation and on the maintenance of animals at the farm comes to Rs5.377m. The model dairy farm is located just opposite a prestigious hotel, inside the Governor House, which is the prime land worth billions of rupees as per the market value. “Nobody in the government ever paid attention to the wastage of the public money on such a dairy farm, which is in existence for many years now,” an official said.

“The practice of being insensitive to the wastage of public money this way is akin to the attitude of princes and princesses, staying in this elite building in the yesteryears.” He said that the farm would be certainly closed and the milk requirements of the Governor House would be met from the government’s dairy facilities. The new occupant of the Governor House, Chaudhry Sarwar, is unlikely to have reservations to the shutting down of the farm.


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