Mehsana milk body taking Amul model beyond Gujarat

The Mehsana District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union has upstaged the Khera District Co-operative Milk Producers Union to become the new face of India’s dairy industry.

Mehsana Union handles about half -a-million litres more than Khera Union, which introduced and made Amul a nationally-known brand. Moreover, the Mehsana Union has set a trend by setting up its own milk processing facilities outside Gujarat. In June, traditionally a leaner season, the average milk procured by Mehsana Union was 22.76 lakh litres a day, while Khera Union handled about 16.08 litres. The Banaskantha Milk Union, which had emerged as the largest last year, procured about 25 lakh litres during June. The Banas Union processes about 18 litres in Gujarat and another over 1 lakh litres at its dairy in Virar, Mumbai, while the remaining 6 lakh litres was sent to Mother Dairy, Gandhi Nagar.

Mehsana, which has been operating a 10 lakh litre processing capacity at Dudhmansagar Dairy in Manesar, has set up a new facility at Dharuhera in Haryana, at an investment of Rs 400 crore.

The Dudhmotisagar Dairy at Dharuhera, commissioned in October, currently handles about 4 lakh litres a day, but has a processing capacity of 15 lakh litres. Dudhmotisagar will eventually have a processing capacity of 30 lakh litres a day by August 2015. This apart, the milk union processes about 10 lakh litres at its flagship dairy - Dudhsagar Dairy in Mehsana.

Among the 16 member unions of Gujarat Milk Marketing Co-oeprative Federation Ltd, the Mehsana Union leads others in terms of having processing facilities outside the State and closer to the consumers – mainly Delhi-NCR, the fastest growing market for milk and milk products.

Interestingly, all the three unions — Mehsana, Banaskantha and Sabarkantha — together sell about 24 lakh litres of milk under the Amul brand in Delhi, with Mehsana accounting for half of it.

Procurement Growth

As the growth in milk procurement stagnates in Mehsana on account of growing industrialisation and rising prosperity, the Union has slowly expanded its catchment area beyond Gujarat, extending the co-operative procurement model to Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the past three years.

The average milk procured by Mehsana Union outside Gujarat stood at 9 lakh litres per day in June, with over 8 lakh litres coming in from Rajasthan and another 60,000 litres from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh each.

“We have enrolled about three lakh farmers in about 4,100-odd village-level societies in Rajasthan. But, the State is yet to allow us to register these societies. We have written to them in this regard,” said Vipul Chaudhary, Chairman of Dudhsagar Dairy and GCMMF.

However, taking note of the co-operative’s expanding footprint, the Rajasthan Government recently responded by declaring a subsidy of Rs 2 per litre for milk producers in the State, Chaudhary said.

Nishith J Baxi, Managing Director of Mehasana Union, said input services offered by the co-operative, such as the veterinary services, insurance to farmer members and their animals and supply of cattle feed on a cost basis, had helped them expand rapidly in Rajasthan. The union intends to replicate and extend its procurement model in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

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