Oct. 6: The West Bengal-based Bhagirathi Co-operative Milk Union (BCMU) has refused to supply fresh milk to the city after one of its tankers along with the driver went missing last week.

The driver, one Anuj Tyagi, was physically assaulted by some miscreants at Ghograpara village in Nalbari district when he was on his way to the city on September 29.

Tyagi reached Guwahati on September 30 and unloaded 13,000 litres of milk from the tanker at the Khanapara plant of the West Assam Milk Producers? Co-operative Union (Wamul).

He was injured as well as frightened because of the assault.

He left Guwahati the same day.

?According to the latest information available, he has not yet reached the BCMU plant in Murshidabad district of West Bengal,? a source said.

The BCMU under the National Milk Grid has informed the Wamul that supply of fresh milk to the city would not be possible till the driver and the tanker are traced.

Managing director of the Wamul, J. Choudhury, said the matter has been taken up with the Nalbari district administration.

?The driver was badly assaulted. He was in a state of shock,? he said.

Choudhury said Tyagi was assaulted on extortion demands.

With disruption in supply of fresh milk from the BCMU, there will be shortage in supply of Purabi brand of pasteurised and homogenised milk processed by the Wamul for the next few days, Choudhury said.

The BCMU supplies 13,000 litres of milk every five day to the Wamul for processing. According to the Wamul chief, if the problem was not solved immediately, the city would face severe milk crisis.

Sources said the number of cases of harassing and assaulting drivers of Guwahati-bound milk tankers from the BCMU plant is increasing.

In most of the cases, the drivers are demanded huge sums of money, the sources said.

Supply of fresh milk to the Wamul from the other two suppliers ? Barauni Milk Union and Himalaya Milk Union, Siliguri ? have also become quite irregular since Vishwakarma Puja.

The Wamul, more popularly known as Purabi, does the milk marketing through a network of 418 retail booths spread over the city ? each retailer booth covering around 500 households.

Milk is supplied twice a day ? morning and evening ? to the retailers through 13 route vehicles.

The daily household demand of liquid milk in the city is 1.19 lakh litres.

The Wamul supplies around 8,500 to 9,000 litres of milk and milk products in the city everyday.

This is the second time in less than 15 days when the Wamul has expressed its inability to provide regular supply of milk.

There was a serious crisis of milk and milk products in Guwahati after the Wamul announced that it was hit by unavailability of raw milk in the last part of September.

On the other hand, local milk producers and sweet shop owners have been locked in a battle over hike in price of milk.