GANDHINAGAR: Dairy and animal husbandry sector contributes 4.5 per cent to the country’s GDP and the contribution of dairy sector to agriculture sector is 24 per cent, which is valued around Rs 10 lakh crore, which it is highest in the world.
This was stated by Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah Shah while attending the 49th Dairy Industry Conference organized by the Indian Dairy Association (IDA) as the chief guest at Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Several dignitaries including Chief Minister of Gujarat Bhupendra Patel were present on the occasion.
In his address, Amit Shah said that cooperative dairy has paved the path for making the country’s poor women farmers self-reliant. He said that in the 75th year of independence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed the Ministry of Cooperation to fulfil the mantra of “Sahkar se Samridhi”.
Shah said that Indian Dairy Association was established soon after independence the in 1948, and IDA has been instrumental in the development of the dairy sector in the country. He said that an attempt has been made in this conference to have a comprehensive discussion to make India’s dairy sector the strongest in the world.
Shah said that our dairy sector has progressed at an annual rate of 6.6 percent in the last decade. He said that the Ministry of Cooperation, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the Department of Animal Husbandry formed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi will establish rural dairies in two lakh panchayats in the country and then the growth rate of the dairy sector will reach 13.80 percent. He said that our milk processing capacity is about 126 million liters per day, which is the highest in the world. He added that we process 22 percent of our total milk production, which benefits the farmer in the form of increased income. He said that in the export of dairy products also products like milk powder, butter and ghee have a major share and there is immense potential in this. He said that the Government has formed a Multistate Cooperative Society for exports and by connecting it with these two lakh rural dairies there is a possibility of increasing exports by five times.
The Union Minister of Cooperation said that looking at the dairy scenario of the world, in 1970 India produced about 6 crore litres of milk per day and it was a milk deficient country. He said that this production has increased to 58 crore litres per day in 2022 and dairy sector has played a huge role it. He said that from 1970 to 2022 India’s population has increased 4 times whereas milk production has increased more than 10 times. He said that the per capita consumption of milk in the country was 107 grams in 1970; today it has increased to 427 grams per capita, which is more than the world average of 300 grams.
The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that today India’s share in milk production has gone up to 21 percent and the Amul model has contributed a lot in this. He said that we have to move forward with the goal that by the year 2033-34 India should produce 33 percent of the world’s milk with about 330 MMT milk production every year.
