Project to grow India’s world-leading dairy industry

The Indian government approved a Rs108,8 billion (R22,4 billion) 12-year plan, from 2017/2018 to 2028/2029, to grow its dairy industry, already the largest in the world.
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The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said in a statement that the investment would benefit 9,5 million farmers in about 50 000 villages, and create direct and indirect employment opportunities for 40 000 skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled jobs.

This included additional employment for supervising more milk procurement operations, transporting milk from villages to processing units, and increased demand for artificial insemination and veterinary services.

Initially it would include 39 milk unions in 12 states. Cooperatives could join as they became eligible, based on their net worth and profit levels.

The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and National Dairy Development Co-operative would provide loans to milk unions, state dairy federations, multi-state milk co-operatives, milk producer companies and NDDB subsidiaries meeting the eligibility criteria.

Borrowers would pay interest at 6,5% and the repayment period would be 10 years with an initial two-year moratorium.

The project planned to focus on building an efficient milk procurement system, by creating, modernising and expanding processing infrastructure and manufacturing faculties for value-added products.

It planned to boost processing by 1,26 million litres a day, milk-drying capacity by 210t a day, and milk chilling capacity by 1,4 million litres a day, by procuring 28 000 bulk milk coolers along with electronic milk adulteration testing equipment.

This amounts to some 59,78 million litres a day of milk equivalent in manufacturing capacity.

Currently India has an annual output of 138 million tons, accounting for about 17% of global production.

Irish-based Research and Markets Inc. had predicted Indian milk production would grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 14% between 2015 and 2016 and 2021 and 2022.

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