Milk Production in India

From a humble player in 1950s, India has steadily and firmly cruised to become number one in list of milk producing countries around the world. This success story has been written mainly by our smallholder milk producers; but the Operation Flood Programme implemented by the National Dairy Development Board was much instrumental in bringing the white revolution. Increasing incomes, changed lifestyle and food habits, urban culture etc. have been mainly instrumental in making Indian dairy industry a truly demand driven, highly diversified business proposition. There has been a paradigm shift in the way milk and dairy products are consumed. The consumers have slowly moved from loose milk to tetra packs, value added products such as flavoured milk, cheese, butter, curd, icecream etc.

India ranks first in milk production, accounting for 17 per cent of world production. During 2013-14, milk production peaked at 137.69 MT, thus becoming an important secondary source of income for 70 million rural households engaged in dairying. The average year-on-year growth rate of milk, at 4.18 per cent vis-à-vis the world average of 2.2 per cent, shows sustained growth in availability of milk and milk products for the growing population. [Economic Survey 2014-15]

The key features of India’s dairy sector are as follows

• About 80 per cent of milk produced in the country is handled in the unorganized sector; remaining 20 per cent is equally shared by cooperatives and private dairies.
• Over 1.33 lakh village-level dairy cooperative societies, spread over 265 districts in the country, collect about 25.1 million liters of milk per day and market about 20 million liters.

The efforts of the Government in the dairy sector are concentrated in promotion of dairy activities in non-Operation Flood areas with emphasis on building cooperative infrastructure, revitalization of sick dairy cooperatives and federations and creation of infrastructure in the States.