"In India, the demand for dairy products is increasing and we need to step up production quite a bit because of nutritional challenges we have," NDDB Chairman T Nanda Kumar told reporters here.
Responding to a question on demand for milk, he said: "The demand will depend on economic growth that you will get and also on population growth."
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We will have to take both into consideration, but we believe that from our present increase of 4-4.5 per cent per year, we need to step it to about 6 per cent, he added.
"Because the demand for dairy products is increasing much more than milk. Also it is a question of nutrition - that if you want a well nourished set of children and women coming out of this country, probably we need to look at that 6 per cent as some thing that we need to do from a larger growth perspective," he added.
Milk production in India, the world's largest producer and consumer, during the year 2013-14 was estimated at 140 million tonnes (MT), while it stood at 132.4 MT in 2012-13, as per the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) data.
Nanda Kumar and his team today visited rural milk producers of Ganangalu and Doddanallurahalli Milk Cooperative Societies at Hoskote in Bangalore rural district and inspected the innovative practices introduced by the National Dairy Development Board under the National Dairy Plan 1. NDDB is running a programme the 'National Dairy Plan' to increase milk production for meeting the growing demand which is estimated to be around 200 MT by 2021-22.
The phase-1 of the plan was launched in 2012 at Anand in Gujarat. It involves a total investment of Rs 2,242 crore and aims at increasing milk production by increasing productivity of milch animals. World Bank is also financing this plan.