India`s milk procurement up 1% in 2010-11: NDDB

World Bank's approval for NDP-I is expected soon, says Amrita Patel,

Milk procurement by the dairy cooperatives in the country showed marginal growth of one per cent over the last year with a milk collection of 9.6 million tonnes in the current year, informed National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in its annual report for 2010-11.

However, marketing of the liquid milk by dairy cooperatives rose by around 4 per cent over the previous year and stood at about 8.2 million tonnes in 2010-11, the report stated.

According to NDDB, India continued to be the largest milk producing country in the world during 2010-11 with estimated milk production of 121 million tonnes for 2010-11. This constitutes close to 17 per cent of world milk production.

In order to meet the rising domestic demand for milk, NDDB planned a multi-state initiative and prepared a National Dairy Plan (NDP) with a fifteen year horizon. "NDP - I has been appraised by the World Bank and the approval for the project is expected shortly," informed Amrita Patel, chairman, NDDB.

Additional funding for activities that are commercial in nature such as plants for milk processing and manufacture of cattle feed, are being explored with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an affiliate of the World Bank, NDDB informed in a statement issued on Tuesday.

According to Patel, Higher GDP growth, increased incomes in rural areas through schemes like MGNREGA and a growing population are contributing to a rapidly growing demand for milk. Increasing domestic milk production at the pace required through adoption of a scientific approach would be the only way to meet the surge in demand.

The NDP aims at contributing to increasing milk production by increasing milch animal productivity in existing milch animals through a focused and scientific process for breeding and feeding.

The first phase of the NDP is proposed to be implemented over a period of six years and envisages an investment of around Rs 2,000 crore for various activities aimed at improving milk production.

The project is proposed to be carried out by End Implementing Agencies (EIAs) including state cooperative dairy federations, district cooperative milk producers unions, producer companies and state livestock development boards to create an enabling environment for the successful implementation of the project.