How Digital Tools Are Quietly Reshaping India’s Dairy Sector

India produces nearly a quarter of the world’s milk, but the scale of its dairy economy has long posed challenges of efficiency, transparency, and farmer welfare. Over the last few years, a quiet digital transformation led by the “National Dairy Development Board” (NDDB) has begun to change how livestock is tracked, milk is procured, and decisions are made across the cooperative network. From digital animal identities to GPS-based milk routes, technology is increasingly binding India’s vast dairy ecosystem together.

Why digitisation matters in the world’s largest dairy system

India’s dairy sector is built on millions of small and marginal farmers supplying milk daily to cooperative societies. Any inefficiency — in payments, transport, animal health, or data flow — directly affects rural incomes. As production expands and value chains become more complex, analogue systems struggle to keep pace.

Digital platforms promise something critical: traceability, speed, and trust. By linking farmers, animals, cooperatives, and markets through real-time data, NDDB’s initiatives aim to improve productivity while ensuring that benefits reach producers at the grassroots.

Pashu Aadhaar and the push for traceable livestock

At the heart of this transformation is the “National Digital Livestock Mission” (NDLM), implemented by NDDB in collaboration with the “Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying”. The mission seeks to build a unified digital livestock ecosystem known as “Bharat Pashudhan”.

Each animal is issued a unique 12-digit bar-coded ear tag, called “Pashu Aadhaar”, which serves as a lifelong digital identity. Health, breeding, vaccination, and treatment records are linked to this ID, creating a single, accessible profile for farmers and veterinarians alike. By November 2025, over 35.68 crore animals had been issued Pashu Aadhaar, with more than 84 crore service transactions logged on the system.

This data backbone enables better disease surveillance, targeted breeding, and evidence-based policymaking — all crucial for sustaining productivity at scale.

Making milk payments transparent through automation

Daily milk collection is the backbone of India’s cooperative dairy model. To eliminate manual errors and opacity, NDDB developed the Automatic Milk Collection System (AMCS), which digitally records quantity and quality parameters such as fat and SNF at the point of procurement.

Payments are calculated instantly and transferred directly to farmers’ bank accounts, with real-time SMS alerts ensuring transparency. Operational across 12 states and Union Territories, AMCS now covers over 26,000 dairy cooperative societies and benefits more than 17.3 lakh milk producers across 54 milk unions.

By standardising procurement and creating digital audit trails, AMCS has strengthened trust between farmers and cooperatives — a foundational requirement for the cooperative model to endure.

Enterprise systems from cow to consumer

Beyond procurement, NDDB has introduced the NDDB Dairy ERP (NDERP), a web-based enterprise resource planning system tailored for dairies and edible oil units. Built on open-source architecture, it integrates finance, inventory, production, sales, HR, and distribution into a single platform.

Crucially, NDERP is linked with AMCS, enabling end-to-end digital tracking from milk collection to processing and distribution. Distributors can place orders, track deliveries, and manage payments through dedicated portals and mobile apps, reducing friction across the supply chain.

Strengthening breeding through digital semen management

Productivity gains in dairying depend heavily on genetics. The Semen Station Management System (SSMS), developed under the World Bank-funded National Dairy Plan I, digitises the entire lifecycle of frozen semen production.

From bull management and biosecurity to quality control and sales, every step is digitally logged and linked with national databases. Integrated with the Information Network for Animal Productivity and Health (INAPH), SSMS ensures traceability of semen doses supplied across the country. Currently, 38 graded semen stations use the platform, strengthening India’s artificial insemination infrastructure.

Using data to guide decisions, not instincts

At the organisational level, NDDB’s Internet-based Dairy Information System (i-DIS) serves as a national data repository for cooperative dairies. Nearly 200 milk unions, along with federations, marketing dairies, and cattle-feed plants, upload operational data on procurement, sales, manufacturing, and input supply.

This allows cooperatives to benchmark performance, identify inefficiencies, and plan investments using evidence rather than intuition. For policymakers, i-DIS provides a rare, consolidated view of India’s cooperative dairy industry.

Cutting costs with GIS-based milk route planning

Milk transport is one of the most cost-sensitive components of the dairy value chain. NDDB’s introduction of GIS-based milk route optimisation replaces manual planning with data-driven mapping of procurement and delivery routes.

Piloted in regions such as Vidarbha–Marathwada, Varanasi, West Assam, Jharkhand, and Indore, the system has reduced travel distance, fuel consumption, and turnaround time for milk tankers. NDDB now offers a free, web-based dynamic route planning tool to cooperatives, lowering logistics costs while improving service reliability.

What this transformation adds up to

Taken together, these platforms signal a shift from fragmented, paper-based operations to an integrated digital dairy ecosystem. For farmers, this means timely payments, better animal health services, and greater visibility into their own productivity. For cooperatives, it means efficiency, accountability, and informed decision-making. For the sector as a whole, it means resilience at scale.

As India seeks to consolidate its position as the world’s leading milk producer, NDDB’s digital push suggests that the future of dairying will be defined not just by volume, but by data — connecting every animal, every farmer, and every litre of milk into a transparent and efficient value chain.