|
The government has no proposal to introduce a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for milk, saying prices will continue to be determined by cooperatives and private dairies based on market conditions, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
In a written reply to a starred question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh said milk prices are currently determined by cooperatives and private dairies, and there is no proposal to fix an MSP for the commodity. The minister said the government is implementing several initiatives to protect the interests of dairy farmers, stabilise milk prices, safeguard consumer interests and strengthen quality monitoring across the country. To bring more milk producers into the organised sector, the government said 36,283 new Dairy Cooperative Societies (DCS) had been established at the village level by March 2026, while 31,150 societies had been strengthened. It added that 168 lakh litres per day of milk chilling capacity had been created and 76,748 quality testing devices distributed. Projects with a total milk processing and value-addition capacity of 418 lakh litres per day have also been approved. According to the government, India produced 248 million metric tonnes (MMT) of milk in 2024-25, up from 146 MMT in 2014-15, registering an increase of about 69 per cent. It attributed the growth to measures such as breed development, genetic improvement, free artificial insemination, sex-sorted semen and in-vitro fertilisation. The government said 17.27 crore artificial inseminations have been carried out, increasing coverage from 20 per cent to 42 per cent and boosting milk productivity by 67 per cent. The reply also noted that while an estimated 63 per cent of the country's milk production reaches the market, 68 per cent of the marketable surplus continues to be handled by the unorganised sector, with the government focusing on expanding organised procurement through village-level dairy infrastructure. The minister also said the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) continues to monitor milk quality through nationwide surveillance conducted by State Food Safety Authorities. (ANI)
|
