The Centre will next month invite bids from milk companies to turnaround loss-making Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) by taking over its operations and maintenance on a long-term lease basis.
Last year, the Cabinet had given the go-ahead for corporatisation of state-owned DMS and its progress was reviewed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week.
"The concession agreement is being finalised. Once that is ready, we will issue next month the Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking bids for operation and maintenance of DMS," a senior Agriculture Ministry official told PTI.
The DMS will be leased out for at least 30 years to ensure the company makes profit using the existing infrastructure and resources, the official said.
Milk companies like Amul, Nandini (Karnataka), Sudha (Bihar), Mother Dairy (Delhi) and Saras (Rajasthan) have evinced interest in running DMS, which has 800 employees.
DMS has milk production and packaging capacity of 5 lakh litres per day, besides a network of 1,298 outlets in the NCR.
It was set up in 1959 with the primary objective of supplying wholesome milk to Delhi citizens at reasonable prices as well as for providing remunerative prices to milk producers.
DMS has been procuring raw/fresh milk from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.
Besides processing and supplying milk, DMS is also manufacturing and marketing yogurt, ghee, butter, paneer, butter milk and flavoured milk.
