OMFED targets Rs 350 crore sales turnover in 2009-10

Close on the heels of achieving financial turn around in the last fiscal, the Orissa State Co-operative Milk Producers Federation (OMFED) hopes to achieve a sales turnover of Rs 350 crore during the current fiscal.

In the event of any hike in the milk prices, the sales turnover is likely to be even higher. If achieved, this will be about 30 percent more than Rs 269 crore turnover achieved in 2008-09. We hope the sales turnover to touch Rs 350 crore during the current fiscal even without any hike in consumer price”, Santosh Kumar Sarangi, managing director, OMFED told Business Standard.

After making a loss of Rs 2.42 crore in 2007-08, the organisation made a profit of Rs 2.83 crore in 2008-09, which is attributed to a series of pro-active measures taken by the management.

They include downsizing the manpower by dispensing with the job of 60 contractual employees, preventing loss in the cattle feed operations and monitoring the marketing of liquid milk among others. Besides, the powder plant operated by OMFED was shut down to reduce loss. Due to strict monitoring, the milk sales recorded a growth of about 16 percent and sale of other milk products increased by about 30 percent during 2008-09 compared to the previous fiscal.

Sources said, prudent fiscal management coupled with negotiation with the banks helped the organisation to reduce the burden of servicing interest by about Rs 1 crore.

Meanwhile, OMFED plans to ramp up the processing capacity of its Balasore dairy to 75,000 liter of milk per day from 30,000 litres at present. Similarly, the capacity of the Sambalpur dairy will be raised to 50,000 liters from 40,000 litres at present. A new dairy with a capacity of 30,000 litres of milk per day will come up at Salapada in Keonjhar district.

An estimated Rs 4.2 crore is proposed to be spent for expanding the capacity of Balasore dairy, Rs 1.2 crore for Sambalpur dairy and another Rs 3.8 crore for setting up the new dairy at Salapada.