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Punjab to hire firms for Milkfed

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Vijay C Roy New Delhi/ Chandigarh
In order to bail out the ailing state-owned Milkfed(Milk Federation), the Punjab government is planning to avail services of global consultancy firms to improve the efficiency, profitability and market operation of the federation.
 
The federation is also planning to explore new markets like Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and national capital region.
 
Punjab cooperation minister, Captain Kanwaljit Singh, informed that the government would very soon advertise for hiring consultancy firm.
 
The federation incurred a loss of Rs 2.48 crore in the first quarter(April-June) of the current financial year, while during the same corresponding period last year, it had suffered loss of Rs 1.35 crore.
 
Singh blamed poor management, lack of proper policy directions and lack of performance-based incentives for the losses incurred by Milkfed in the recent past.
 
"Compared to 1995-96, when Punjab held fifth position in milk procurement, it has slipped to ninth position during 2005-06."
 
Punjab has 11.7 million litres of marketable surplus milk per day against the daily production of 23.4 million litres. Milkfed has a share of just 6.7 per cent in daily milk procurement. Also, the milk plants in the state are utilising only 48 per cent of their installed capacity.
 
In order to increase the profitability, a target has been set for Milkfed to increase its capacity utilisation from 48 percent to 75 percent in the current year and further up to 400 percent in the next four years to keep itself in growing competition. The performance of General Managers of all milk plants will be assessed after a year..
 
Singh said that state co-operative banks will provide loans for setting up of commercial dairies, as well as for marginal dairy farmers to buy hybrid milch cattle. To ensure the implementation of this particular initiative, he announced to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of registrar of Co-operative Societies in which managing director of Milkfed and managing directors of cooperative banks have been made members.
 
He directed for chalking out an incentive-oriented pricing structure for big diary farmers to increase the volume of milk besides providing modern electronic testing machines in each society in the current year. He emphasised on the need of installing chilling tanks at required places to cut the transportation loss which would be passed on to dairy farmers in four years.
 
Singh informed that Amritsar and Gurdaspur will explore their possibilities in Jammu & Kashmir, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur in Himachal Pradesh, Bathinda and Sangrur in national capital region as well as in Haryana and Ludhiana in its own city, while Chandigarh and Mohali will capture the maximum market in Mohali, Chandigarh & Panchkula.

 
 

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First Published: Aug 07 2007 | 12:00 AM IST

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