Rural women flex economic muscle

Achieve two firsts by setting up coop dairy, deploying tech to measure milk

Fifteen Mutually-Aided Thrift and Credit Cooperative Societies (MACS) of women in Nizamabad district have achieved two firsts in the cooperative sector in the country.

They formed a federation called Indur Intideepam MACS Federation (IIMF) and for the first time in the country, the federation registered a private company called Intideepam Mahila Dairy Producer Company (IMDPC) under the Company's Act.

The IIMF has 31,733 women shareholders comprising 41 per cent SCs, 42 per cent BCs, 8 per cent STs, 4 per cent OCs and 6 per cent Muslims. It is spread over 378 villages.

In another first, the Intideepam Mahila Dairy Producer Company is using a sophisticated data processor milk collection unit (DP-MCU) to measure and procure milk from 1,749 women farmers. The unit even attracted US President George Bush's attention during his visit to the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University in Hyderabad.

Speaking to Business Standard, IIMF president Mekala Posani said, "The dairy has set up a bulk milk cooler with DP-MCU at a cost of Rs 35 lakh at Sudapalli in Dichpalli mandal. Farmers (all women) have been issued smart cards. The DP-MCU consists of a data processor electronic milk tester, an electronic weighing system, a seven-segment green LED digital indicator of 25-mm height and a dot-matrix printer. A farmer's membership number and the CLR reading can be fed into the smart card. When he pours milk into the special grade stainless steel container attached to the DP-MCU, his membership number, the weight of the milk, fat percentage and the amount he gets would be displayed immediately, ensuring complete transparency. A printout of the transaction would also be issued to the farmer. Payment is made to the farmer fortnightly."

The dairy, started four months ago, collects 4,000 litres of milk (with an average 7 per cent fat and 9.3 SNF) per day.

"Now farmers get Rs 12 per a litre of milk whereas they used to get a paltry Rs 6-8 per litre from the middlemen before the entry of IMDPC. By August this year, the dairy plans to collect 10,000 litres of milk per day "� 5,000 litres in the morning and 5,000 litres in the evening. The milk thus collected is supplied to the Mulakanoor Women's Dairy Cooperative in Karimnagar district," she added.

Posani said that the dairy had borrowed funds totaling Rs 4.25 crore from BASIX, ABN Amro Bank, FWWB, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Bellwether Micro Finance. A loan from the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) is in the pipeline.

She said the dairy would soon set up bulk milk cooling centres at Nandipet, Navipet, Madunur, Jipkal and Darpalli, and collect 30,000 litres per day. The company would benefit 13,000 families in the first year. "It would expand to five districts in Telangana in the next five years and benefit 2.5 lakh women," she added.

GRAM Abyudaya Mandali, a non-governmental organisation, helped the IIMF and the dairy company from the conceptualisation stage to inauguration. It had also trained farmers in artificial insemination.

The NGO first gave farm training, loans and inputs to the poorest of poor farmers. It set up grain banks, making them partners, and involved them in quarry and contract works to empower them. GRAM works with 3,201 self-help groups (SHG) with a membership of 42,003 in 514 villages and formed in all 20 MACS in Nizamabad and Adilabad districts.