Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying Sanjeev Kumar Balyan on Sunday said that the Government will support farmers initiatives in creating their own organisation while inaugurating ‘Harit Pradesh Milk Producer Company'( HPMPC) in Western Uttar Pradesh (UP).

The Minister complimented the farmers in the 7 districts of the region for demonstrating the meaning of empowerment and entrepreneurship.

The Minister said, “The Government will support such initiatives as describing HPMPC as “a new Cooperative in UP, this is not a company in fact it is a farmer organisation and our focus will be on such entities as they are of farmers and work in the interest of farmers.”

“The Government’s focus is on increasing the production and productivity from indigenous milching animals and for this purpose Artificial insemination will be provided to farmers free of the cost free across the country. Government will also provide 4500 veterinary ambulances of which a substantial number will be of Uttar Pradesh,” the minister added.

Complimenting the National Dairy development board for facilitating 4 other such entities in Uttar Pradesh ~ Varanasi, Amethi and Rae Bareilly and Bundelkhand for upliftment of farmers of the state, Mr Balyan said “the focus of the Union Government in on development of farm sectors where budgetary allocation substantially to Rs 132,000 crore from Rs 22000 crore in 2014. The focus is on increasing the productivity of indigenous breeds of milch animals.”

He praised milk farmers for procuring and pooling quality milk from hundreds of villages in 7 districts namely Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Saharanpur, Hapur, Shamli and Bijnor. He said that since technology and transparent digital mechanism is at the core of the new entity,it will ensure better returns for the farmers along-with good quality milk for consumers.

This organisation was incorporated on 26 October, 2021 with the aim of procuring quality milk from its members/shareholders only. It is an initiative basis the provisions contained in the Companies Act, 2013 enabling the business enterprise to run on the Mutual Assistance Principles similar to the Co-operative Principles adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance.
Harit Pradesh Milk Producer Company is the 19th such entity across 9 states. These producer companies are collectively owned by about 7.5 lakh dairy farmers, procuring over 40 lakh litres of milk per day.

In the run up to formal inauguration, HPMPC has already spread over 1400 villages across 7 districts namely Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Saharanpur, Hapur, Shamli and Bijnor, scaling up milk procurement as of now to 150,000 litres per day, indicating the vast size and shape of the business, weaved into co-operative approach.

National Dairy Development Board’s (NDDB) wholly owned subsidiary NDDB Dairy Services (NDS) provided technical assistance and facilitated the new entity governed by the Board of Directors elected by the farmer shareholders from amongst themselves and managed by a professional team.

Speaking on the occasion, Meenesh Shah, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board said that the NDDB family looks forward every day to make dairy farmers an important source of income and bringing a smile to their faces. NDDB and its subsidiaries NDDB Dairy Services and Mother Dairy are helping to give a positive shape to the efforts of the minister. 19 farmers-owned such organizations have been formed across the country in states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. These organizations collectively procure about 40 lakh liters of milk per day and so far, these organizations collectively have a turnover of Rs 5600 crore. It has benefited more than 7 lakh families, and 70% are women farmers in these entities.

Mother Dairy will provide the forward linkage to HPMPC in terms of processing and selling milk to consumers, making the facility available to the farmers throughout the year. This will play an important role in the development of the region.

He said, HPMPC will grow impressively in coming 5 years and NDDB is undertaking some other schemes for dairying development in the region including 120 biogas plants in villages of Muzaffarnagar district, cluster slurry processing units for providing biogas and cooking gas to the farmers.
NDDB Dairy Services (NDS) Managing Director, Dr Saugata Mitra pointed out that the initiative of MPCs also focuses on empowerment of rural women.

NDS came into existence in 2009 for helping milk farmers create their own entities for enhancing milk production and productivity by ensuring an infrastructure for cattle feed and area-specific mineral mixture besides artificial insemination and other developed technologies.

With the newly formed organization, NDS has contributed to creation of 19 entities operating in over 100 districts collecting an average of 40 Lakh Litres per day. Our goal is to bring about a social change in the rural landscape of India along with substantive contribution for economic upliftment by raising the income levels of each dairy family.”