Most of the District Cooperative Milk Unions and State Milk Federations primarily procure milk within their respective States. However, some dairy cooperatives have expanded their procurement operations beyond their States. Though NDDB collects data on total milk procurement by the dairy cooperatives (Milk Federation and Unions), the data on inter-state expansion of dairy cooperatives is not being collected by it.

No specific assessment has been conducted by the Government regarding the impact of inter-State competition on the financial viability and procurement capacity of district and State-level cooperatives.

In order to strengthen cooperative federalism and safeguard the interests of local farmer-led cooperatives, the Ministry of Cooperation has taken initiatives to ensure that the benefits of milk procurement accrue directly to farmers. In this regard, an initiative has been undertaken to bring the Milk Collection Centres (MCCs) across 22 states and Milk Pooling Points (MPPs) across 9 states of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) under the cooperative framework.

Under this initiative, approximately 45,000 MCCs/MPPs are proposed to be registered as Multi-Purpose Village Cooperative Societies (M-VCS) and enrolled as members of Sardar Patel Cooperative Dairy Federation Limited (SPCDF) and National Cooperative Milk Producer Organisation Ltd. (NCMPOL), as applicable, both being multi-State cooperative societies.

Such conversion of MCCs and MPPs into multi-purpose village cooperative societies will ensure that the dairy farmers get assured markets, remunerative prices for the milk poured by them, patronage bonus, dividend on shareholding etc.

Additionally, they get benefits such as input services (cattle feed), veterinary services etc.

This information was given by Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Shri Amit Shah in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

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AK/AP

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