Bihar's Comfed wants to run DMS

Second state-run cooperative after Amul to show interest in DMS

After Gujarat’s Amul sought to acquire the loss-making Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS), Bihar’s state-run Cooperative Milk Federation (Comfed) said it was interested in running DMS milk processing plants and outlets on a rental basis.

Comfed runs the Sudha brand of milk, launched here yesterday.

“We had given a proposal to the ministry earlier also, to sell Comfed products through DMS outlets in Delhi, which was rejected. Now that the government is looking at corporatisation of DMS, Comfed is keen to participate,” Managing Director Harjot Kaur told reporters.

Comfed sells around 950,000 litres of milk a day.

DMS, which comes under the Union agriculture ministry, has production and packaging capacity of 500,000 litres a day, with 1,298 outlets in the capital. Delhi is the largest market for Amul, with a daily sale of 2.4 million litres. Amul has processing capacity of four million litres per day in Delhi-NCR.

“We’ll initially sell around 200,000 litres of Sudha brand milk in the Delhi market and slowly scale up our operations,” said Kaur.

She said milk would be transported from Bihar and processed and packaged in the capital.

“We would not procure any milk from Delhi and the National Capital Region, but process it in a plant in JP Nagar. Sudha has already tied up with 12 distributors,” Kaur said.