Govt to Control Milk Pouches to Save Environment

A high level meeting was held under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying to review the milk situation in the country today. The meeting was attended by senior officers of State Cooperative Dairy Federations/, CEOs/Managing Directors of Private Dairies, Representatives from Ministry of Women & Child Development, School Education and Literacy, Commerce & Industries, National Dairy Development Board & APEDA.

In view of announcement by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on Independence Day, AMUL and Mother Dairy were requested to formulate action plan/protocol to recycle milk pouches and share with Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying for circulation to other Milk Federations for implementation.

The Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying requested Major Dairy Federations like Gujarat Milk Federation (Amul), Karnataka Milk Federation (Nandini), Punjab Milk Federation (Verka), Maharashtra Milk Federation (Mahanand) to encourage reuse of plastic milk pouches, in a campaign mode, with 3R strategy – Reduce, Rebate and Reuse. i.e. REDUCE consumption of plastics by subsidizing price of 1 litre pack over ½ litre pack, REBATE to customers for bringing back plastics, REUSE of pouches for users such as Road construction, recyclers.

Secretary, Animal Husbandry and Dairying requested all Cooperative Milk Federations and Private Dairies to at least halve plastic use by Gandhi Jayanti (2^nd October).  Media was requested to start a campaign like Swachcha Bharat to discourage plastics and thereby improve environment.

The meeting also reviewed the availability, supply, prices and export/import issues with the milk processors. The milk procurement price was observed to have increased by Rs.1-2 across the country. The representatives were requested to focus on the quality aspects of milk and reduction in cost of production. The views of the stakeholders present in the meeting were sought on breeding, feeding, disease management, traceability etc. to draw the policy to double productivity, exports and farmers income by next 5 years.