White revolution: J’khand nearly doubles milk production in one decade

Ranchi: The tribal heartland of Jharkhand is gradually inching towards becoming self-reliant in milk production in a few years. Over the last decade, the state took giant strides with the help of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) by directly linking over one lakh farmers with dairy activities and setting up its brand of milk and milk products.The move also led to a silent turnaround in the rural economy.
In 2014, Jharkhand formally roped in NDDB to bolster its dairy sector, which remained mostly unorganised until then. In the 2014-15 financial year, the state's annual milk production capacity stood at 17.34 lakh tonne. A decade later in 2023-24, it reached 30.25 lakh tonne. The per capita availability of milk also saw a significant hike to 209 gram per day at present, compared to 137 gram per day in 2014-15.
Jaidev Biswas, the managing director of Medha, the state's indigenous brand of milk and milk products managed by Jharkhand Milk Federation (JMF), said they have set a target of procuring and producing 5 lakh litre of milk per day by 2029.
"Currently, we are procuring about 3.75 lakh litre of milk per day from farmers," he said, stressing that considering the progress made by JMF in the last decade, the state is gradually on the course of becoming self-reliant in milk production very soon.
According to Biswas, around 70 lakh litre of milk are produced daily. "Of these, around 35 lakh litre are surplus. They are available after domestic consumption and flow into the organised packaged milk sector," he said.
Of the total demand of around 14 lakh litre of milk per day in the urban sectors, around 7 lakh litre of packaged milk are sold, as per a survey by the World Bank at the behest of NDDB in 2019.
"Medha produces around 2 lakh litre to 2.5 lakh litre, Sudha (Bihar State Milk Co-Operative Federation Ltd's brand), about 3 lakh litre, Amul about 1.75 lakh litre, and a few smaller players like ITC and Osam, among other brands bring out 25,000 litre to 30,000 litre per day," he said, adding that they were working on various plans to break into new markets and ramp up their production of both milk and milk products.
An official of the state dairy and animal husbandry department maintained that the govt was laying special stress on dairy development to augment farmers' incomes and create new livelihoods. "Currently, around one lakh farmers are linked with JMF. As a result, farmers who once used to sell milk at throwaway prices are getting an assured income," he said.
Biswas concurred and said the reason why an increasing number of farmers were now enrolling with JMF to sell their raw milk daily was because of the steady income flow.
"Ever since we began operations, we ensured that payments to farmers are directly credited every 10 days. This motivated them to join hands with us, as in the last 10 years, the number of farmers increased to one lakh from a meagre few thousand," he said, adding that they have also undertaken numerous measures to train dairy farmers on animal husbandry and increasing milk production of cows, among other milch animals.
"JMF has been providing different training programmes to the milk farmers, such as clean milk production, women empowerment programmes and dairy animal husbandry management at the village level as well as by sending the farmers to the NDDB's training centre. S far, around 40,000 farmers have been trained. JMF also provides emergency veterinary services, animal health awareness camps, BIS-certified balanced cattle feed, area-specific mineral mixtures, silage, seasonal green fodder seeds and perennial fodder. We have also initiated a project for breed improvement," he said.
On their future plans, Biswas said JMF is working on setting up dairy plants in Jamshedpur and Giridih, each having a 50,000-litre to 1 lakh-litre capacity production per day. "Each plant is estimated to cost Rs 66.69 crore," he said. "This apart, a Rs 107 crore power plant and a Rs 80 crore dairy product plant in Hotwar in Ranchi is proposed. Once ready, they will boost the entire dairy sector significantly," he added.