National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) today said India's annual increase in milk production should be stepped up from current 4.5 per cent (rpt) 4.5 per cent per year to 6 per cent (rpt) 6 per cent, to meet the demand and solve the nutritional challenges in the country.
"In this country the demand for dairy is increasing and therefore we need to step up quite a bit of dairy production because of nutritional challenges that we have across the country...." NDDB Chairman T Nanda Kumar told reporters here.
Responding to a question on demand for milk, he said: "...The demand will depend on the economic growth that you will get and also on the population growth.
"We will have to take both these into consideration, but we believe that from our current (production) increase of 4-4.5 per cent (rpt) 4-4.5 per cent per year we need to step it to about 6 per cent (rpt) 6 per cent... That's roughly the number we are working...".
"...Because the demand for dairy products is increasing much more than milk, also it is a question of nutrition issue-that if you want a nutritious set of children and women coming out of this country, probably we need to look at that 6 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 is estimated at 140 million tonnes (MT), while it stood at 132.4 MT in 2012-13, as per 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 National Dairy Plan 1.
NDDB is running a programme "National Dairy Plan" to increase milk production for meeting the growing demand which is estimated to be around 200 million tonnes 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.
