Cabinet asks Agri Min to rework proposal of corporatising DMS

Certain land will remain with government, only the land that is required for running DMS will be transferred to the new company, says P Chidambaram

The Cabinet has deferred a decision on corporatisation of loss-making Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) and asked Agriculture Ministry to rework the proposal giving details of land requirement.

"The proposal has been deferred because we wanted them (Agriculture Ministry) to produce the revised plan indicating the requirement of land," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters.

"Certain land will remain with government, only the land that is required for running DMS will be transferred to the new company. This information is required. This (proposal) will probably come up in the next meeting or so," he said.

The proposal on corporatisation of DMS, moved by the Agricutlure Ministry to enable takeover of the loss-making operation by well performing milk companies, was discussed in the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which owns Amul brand, has evinced interest in running the DMS plants.

GCMMF, leading milk supplier in Delhi-NCR, had also moved a proposal to the Agriculture Ministry in this regard. Amul wants to increase its presence in the national capital region.

The DMS has milk production and packaging capacity of 5 lakh litres per day, besides a network of 1,298 outlets in the NCR. DMS has 800 employees, but the milk production is only about 2.75 lakh litres per day.

However, its cumulative losses touched Rs 838.66 crore in 2011-12 from Rs 814.43 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 782.32 crore in 2009-10.