Nandini hits new milestone with 10 mn litres of milk procurement daily

Karnataka has hit a record of 10 million litres of daily milk procurement on the back of a healthy spurt in milk production, surpassing all previous records. The daily procurement by the Karnataka Cooperative Milk Federation (KMF) from dairy farmers in June last year was nine million litres, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced on Tuesday after performing a gou pooja (cow worship).

The increase in milk procurement meant an additional subsidy burden to the government, the CM said in a chat with the media. It was the previous Congress regime that increased the incentive (subsidy) payable to dairy farmers from Rs 2 per litre to Rs 5 per litre. Ten million litres of milk procurement daily meant a subsidy outgo of Rs 5 crore per day, translating to Rs 150 crore per month and Rs 1800 crore annually.

KMF sells its milk under the Nandini brand, and had sponsored the Scotland and Ireland cricket teams in the just concluded ICC Men’s T20 world cup. The brand is available in parts of India and the world including in Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, the UAE and the US.


The CM recalled the growth of the dairy sector and said as Animal Husbandry Minister in the 1980s he brought milk unions and primary milk cooperatives together as they functioned independently. Today, there were about 16,000 primary milk cooperatives functioning under 15 cooperative milk unions. They were nurtured by farmers and when they were offering more milk now, the government cannot decline to buy them. It was to protect the interest of dairy farmers the government was charging Rs 2 more per packet of milk with 50 ml of additional milk supply to consumers.

The Opposition BJP was running a misinformation campaign saying the government had hiked the milk prices, which was not a fact, the CM said.

Even now, the milk prices in Karnataka were the lowest compared to neighbouring states, Siddaramaiah said. When reporters pointed out that the government owed subsidy dues to dairy farmers, he maintained that even the previous BJP regime owed dues to farmers.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation is ahead of Karnataka with daily procurement of about 26 million litres of milk.