Soma Mookherjee
KOLKATA, 2 APRIL: West Bengal government, in a move to encourage farmers associated with milk production, has decided to offer an enhanced procurement rate of Rs 34 per litre instead of Rs 31per litre offered earlier.
The increased rate is an outcome of the State’s decision to raise the incentive from Rs 4 to Rs 7.
The Mamata Banerjee-led government’s decision will benefit more than 70,000 milk farmers across Bengal.
“The consumer’s price of milk and milk products of all other brands have increased, except the State government’s milk and milk products under the ‘Banglar Dairy’ brand. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed the Animal Resources Development department not to increase the consumer’s price of milk, to avoid the burden on common people, especially after the Covid pandemic,” an official of the ARD department stated.
A 500 ml milk packet of ‘Banglar Dairy’ is priced in the range of Rs 20 to 27 for common people under five trade names — Swasthyasathi, Aayush, Pransudha, Supreme and Sanjibani.
Under Bangla Dairy, farmers get speedy credit, the chief minister said.
West Bengal government has also simplified the system of disbursement of the procurement price to reduce the period of credit to the milk farmers’ accounts.
Previously, the payment of procurement price took nearly 2 months. The same is now being credited within 10 days.
Before the formation of Banglar Dairy, milk from rural Bengal was sold through the state government’s project — Mother Dairy Calcutta. “However, there were lots of limitations while operating the supply chain under Mother Dairy Calcutta as it did not have permission to sell milk and its products outside West Bengal or in e-commerce platforms,” the official added.
Banglar Dairy is the first govt-owned dairy company in east India, said Miss Banerjee
With the formation of ‘Banglar Dairy’, which happens to be the first government-owned Dairy company in east India, all limitations have been resolved and the avenue of e-commerce has also opened up.
‘Banglar Dairy’ has also opened the opportunity for all dairy processing plants to start processing products under the brand and make them available to the people, maintaining the prescribed quality standards.
Tags: #BanglarDairy #MamataBanerjee #MilkFarmers #ProcurementRate #WestBengal