The annual turnover of Jharkhand Milk Federation (JMF) has increased eight times, from Rs. 21 crores in its inception year 2014-15 to Rs. 173 crore in financial year 2018-19, under the guidance of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
NDDB’s association with Jharkhand dates back to 2014 when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between NDDB and Government of Jharkhand to manage the JMF for a period of five years. Since then, NDDB managed JMF has provided milk producers of Jharkhand with a transparent and quality-based milk procurement system to get a greater access to organized milk processing sector.
Under NDDB’s guidance, JMF achieved an average daily milk procurement of about 1.25 lakh kg per day in FY 2018-19 from over 20,500 milk pourers, covering 562 milk pooling points from more than 2000 villages.
Milk marketing in the month of July 2019has crossed the 1.13lakh litres per day mark. During 2018-19, the average price paid to the farmers is about Rs.28.20 per kg and total milk price paid is around Rs.127.54crore.
Dilip Rath, Chairman of NDDB said, “NDDB managed Jharkhand Milk Federation (JMF) has provided milk producers of Jharkhand with a transparent and quality-based milk procurement system to get greater access to organised milk processing sector. Dairy Board’s efforts have strengthened dairying and ensured remunerative prices to the milk producers.”
He added, “Innovative measures introduced by NDDB guaranteed that the money from the urban areas of Jharkhand gets transferred to the rural areas thereby bringing about a significant improvement in rural economy through dairying. Efforts have been made to promote the financial inclusion of the members of cooperatives. Presently, 100% of milk producers receive payment directly in their bank accounts.”
At present, JMF has a network of over 300 Data Processor based Milk Collection Units (DPMCUs) and about 80 Automatic Milk Collection Units (AMCUs). It has established 80 bulk milk coolers in the vicinity of four dairy plants at Ranchi, Latehar, Deoghar and Koderma.
Hotwar plant, Ranchi with 1 lakh litres per day processing capacity, caters to Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Chatra and Bokaro. Koderma dairy plant processes 10,000litres of milk per day and covers Koderma, Giridih and Nawada (Bihar) while Deoghar dairy plant with a processing capacity of 25,000 litres per day covers Deoghar, Dumka, Godda, Jamtara in Jharkhand and Bhagalpur, Jamui and Banka in Bihar.
Latehar Dairy with 10,000 litres per day processing capacity caters to Lohardaga, Latehar, Palamu and Garhwa.
Also, three more dairy plants are being set up, one each in Sahebganj, Sarath and Palamu. The capacity of each plant will be 50,000 litres per day expandable to 1 Lakh Litre per day. The Sahebganj and Sarath plants will be ready within six months while the Palmau plant will take a year’s time for completion. All the milk and milk products being marketed by the JMF under Medha brand name meet all the quality standards.
Apart from milk procurement, processing and marketing, JMF has also taken initiatives towards productivity enhancement of dairy animals through different input activities like PE camps, vaccination, animal treatment, cattle feed, mineral mixture and others. During 2018-19, more than 5,000 milk producers were benefitted covering 32,387 animals under the productivity enhancement services.
Also, 614 productivity enhancement camps were conducted. Animal treatment camps were arranged in 366 villages where 18,523 vaccinations were done
