Upgrade scheduled for old processing plants.

The Indian government has submitted a Rs.20,057 crore loan proposal to Japan International Cooperation Agency for “Dairying through Cooperatives-National Dairy Infrastructure Plan” in line with its mandate to double farmers income in next five years.

The proposal primarily aims to cover additional 1.28 lakh villages, 121.83 lakh additional milk producers, setting up of 1.05 Lakh bulk milk coolers at village level creating 524.20 lakh Kg milk per day capacity of milk chilling and creation of milk & milk product processing infrastructure of 76.5 lakh Kg per day capacity.

Besides, the programme will modify/expand old milk and milk product plants created 20-30 years ago under Operation Flood and also create milk & milk products plants for value added products which will benefit 160 lakh existing farmers.

The fund will be routed through National Dairy Development Board for the development of dairy sector.

To meet the growing demand of 200- 10 million tonnes by 2021-22, India needs to upgrade its infrastructure at the village level particularly for milk procurement and production of high valued milk products.

The Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries has formulated a Draft National Action Plan for Dairy Development which includes creation of milk chilling facilities including bulk milk cooling, processing infrastructure, value added products (VAP), organisation of milk collection centres/dairy cooperative societies, milk transportation facility and marketing infrastructure to meet the requirement of increased milk handling, a government release said.

The country’s milk production was 155.49 million tonnes in 2015-16. About 54% of the milk produced in the country is surplus for marketing in the domestic market, of which only 20.5% is procured/processed by the organised sector being equally, shared by Cooperatives and Private dairy organizations. fii-news.com