Marathwada, Vidharbha

Mumbai, Oct 16 (PTI) Mother Dairy, a subsidiary of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) today said it has expanded its network of milk procurement operations in the areas of drought affected Marathwada & Vidarbha in Maharashtra.

Today, over 15,000 farmers from 970 villages, associated with over 600 milk producer institutions pour more than 1/lakh litres of milk/day. The districts covered under the initiative are Amravati, Wardha, Nagpur, Chandrapur, Buldana, Nanded and Osmanabad, a statement issued here said.

"Vidarbha and Marathwada have been the most drought affected regions, making it agriculturally distressed; therefore dairying in such adverse climatic conditions can create additional sources for livelihood of farmers.

"Taking the cause forward, NDDB through its subsidiary Mother Dairy intervened in setting up of milk procurement infrastructure to facilitate the larger objective of rural prosperity by providing better remuneration to the farmers of the region," NDDB chairman Dilip Rath said.

With milk procurement touching 1 lakh litres per day, the benefit of this initiative have accrued to farmers in the tune of more than Rs 45 crore till date. Going ahead, we plan to further scale up the operations to more than 3,000 villages, spread across 11 districts and bringing more than 60,000 farmers in the ambit, Rath said.

The milk procured from the regions of Marathwada and Vidarbha is partially being processed in Nagpur Dairy for consumption in the city, thereby providing direct market access to the farmers of the region.

The additional milk stock is being directed to other regions with presence of Mother Dairys operations, it said. PTI AP NRB