Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy launched the A.P. Amul Palavelluva Project in Guntur district virtually from his camp soffice on Friday.
On the occasion, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said the project was intended to give a fillip to the empowerment of women self-help groups by encouraging milk cooperatives in the government sector.
The project was first started on December 2, and milk was being collected from 400 villages in Chittoor, Kadapa and Prakasam districts.
Milk would now be collected from 129 villages in Guntur district.
Remunerative price
Women in Chittoor, Kadapa and Prakasam districts were able to earn ₹5 to ₹7 more per litre than the existing price.
The Chief Minister said that Amul was paying remunerative prices in the market as it stood eighth in the International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN) ranking.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said 41,44,000 litres of milk was so far collected from 10,871 women dairy farmers in 400 villages of Chittoor, Kadapa and Prakasam districts. A sum of ₹18.46 crore was paid to them. Amul had paid ₹3.52 crore more than the existing price, he said.
Bulk milk cooling units and automatic milk collection units would be set up in 9,899 villages at a cost of ₹4,000 crore as part of the Amul project.
Minister for Fisheries and Animal Husbandry S. Appalaraju, Agriculture Special Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah and A.P. Dairy Development Cooperative Federation MD Babu were present.
Home Minister M. Sucharitha, MLA V. Rajani, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation MD R.S. Sodhi and Sabarkantha Co-operative Society MD B.M. Patel participated through a video-conference.