Nagpur: Milk procurement has gone up six times in Vidarbha and Marathwada after
Mother Dairy took over state-run Milk Scheme plant at Seminary Hills in 2016.
The procurement by Mother Dairy, a sister unit of National Dairy Development Board, stands at 1.96 lakh litres a day as of May 2018. The unit covers 1,525 villages (944 collection points). The plant handles 1.20 lakh litres a day, supplied by over 26,000 farmers.
Government sources say farmers earlier did not prefer Milk Scheme because of the tedious payment system. Earlier, the payments were routed through milk cooperatives, which remitted the payment through district central cooperative banks. This led to a long delay. “There was a manual system of recording fat level in milk which determined the rates. This also had a chance of altering the details and often farmers were left complaining of not getting the right price,” said a source.
“The old system has been replaced with an online mechanism and direct payment to the farmers’ accounts. The funds are remitted every 10 days,” the source said.
Till date Rs162 crore have been paid to the farmers. Mother Dairy sells 25,000 litres of pouched milk in Nagpur and nearby areas, says a note by Mother Dairy.
A survey revealed that 5,000 new cattle heads, which include roughly equal number of high yielding cows and buffaloes, were purchased after Mother Dairy started operations. This is expected to have added another 50,000 litres a day, the source said.