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Private dairies have alleged discrimination in not being made part of the Rs 17,300 crore National Dairy Plan (NDP) that was formally launched by the Government on Thursday.
Ten years ago, co-operatives procured 16.5 million litres a day (MLPD) of milk that was more than the 12.5 MLPD procured by organised private dairies in the country. The situation has completely reversed now, with private procurement zooming to 40 MLPD.
While co-operatives have also increased their procurement to 25.9 MLPD, much of their growth has come from just two entities – Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (Amul) and the Karnataka Milk Federation (Nandini).
“If the Government is really serious about NDP, it should also include us (private sector) in its plans. That would be a truly inclusive strategy,” said Mr Rajendra Singh, Managing Director of the Delhi-based VRS Foods (Paras Dairy).
Ten years ago, there was only one private sector player – Nestle India Ltd – that was handling more than one MLPD of milk. Today, there are eight others: Hatsun Agro Product, VRS Foods, Tirumala Dairy, Heritage Foods, Sterling Agro Industries (Nova), Bhole Baba Dairy Industries (Krishna), Dynamix Dairy Industries and Parag Milk Foods (Govardhan). Another six dairies including Dodla Dairy, Keventer Agro, SMC Foods (Madhusudan), Creamline Dairy (Jersey) and Gopaljee Dairy procure over five lakh litres a day.
As regards co-operatives, out of their total 26 MLPD today, over 9 MLPD is accounted for by Amul and almost 4 million by Nandini.
The 15-year NDP, being implemented by the National Dairy Development Board in 14 States, seeks to augment milk production in the country by improving productivity of milch animals and provide rural milk producers greater access to the organised milk processing sector. Such a move is expected to help plug the projected shortfall in milk production by 2020.
The demand for milk is projected to rise 7 per cent by 2020, while the production is growing at 4 per cent resulting in an estimated shortfall of 3 per cent. Milk demand is set to touch 200 million tonnes by 2020, up from 122.8 million tonnes in 2010-11.
Representatives of private dairies are expected to meet the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, soon to emphasise the need to include private sector in the NDP. Such a meet is likely to take place ahead of the meeting convened by the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh on April 23 to discuss strategy for agricultural exports.
Such demand from private players assumes significance as they have played a key role in development of dairy sector in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. They have developed their own network of milk production centres and have been investing in the required infrastructure.
“In spite of the excellent growth recorded by private sector, the Government policies have always been favouring co-operatives. Further, for all policy discussions, private diaries are ignored,” said Mr R.G.Chandramogan, CMD, Hatsun Agro Food. “The preferential duty concessions, both for export and import, must be equally extended to the private sector at par with co-operatives,” he said.
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