Gandhinagar: Shri Amit Shah, Union Minister for Home Affairs and Cooperation, gave away NCDFI e-market awards to the winners at the National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India (NCDFI) Golden Jubilee celebration and an MoU was signed between NDDB and Gujarat State Fertilizer Chemicals Ltd (GSFC) for promotion of bio-slurry based Organic Fertilisers during the programme here on Sunday. Also, Shri Amit Shah handed over funds under Gujarat’s Gobardhan scheme to National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to implement NDDB’s Manure Value Chain model in every district of Gujarat.

Shri BL Verma, Minister of State for Cooperation, Government of India, Shri Jagdish Panchal, Minister for Cooperation Department, Government of Gujarat, Shri Satish Marathe, Director, Reserve Bank of India, Shri Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB, Shri Mangal Jit Rai, Chairman, NCDFI and Shri K C Supekar, Managing Director, NCDFI graced the occasion.

Shri Amit Shah, the chief guest of the celebrations, said, “Some 223 district dairy cooperatives are affiliated with NCDFI. The cooperative movement has made India Atmanirbhar. It has addressed the problem of nutrition successfully. If these institutions did not exist, nutritional challenges would have been horrific. Organisations like NCDFI must undergo a paradigm shift in today’s times to prevent them from becoming irrelevant.”

“India is already the biggest supplier of milk globally. However, the focus of cooperatives must now be towards digitisation and improvement by reducing fodder costs and milk production costs. When quality improves and production costs are less, we can look at the export market,” the Minister of cooperation further added.

Shri BL Verma, during his address, said, “It is thanks to the dairy sector that India has emerged as Atmanirbhar in milk production. I congratulate the recipients of NCDFI for having achieved this feat and strengthening the cooperative ecosystem in this country.”

Addressing the event, Shri Panchal said, “The setting up of the Ministry of Cooperation will further help strengthen the cooperative structure in India. Gujarat is the role model for India when it comes to the cooperative movement. Clearly, the state has dairy cooperatives successfully running across some 24 districts, due to which, some 290 lakh litre milk collection takes place daily. To meet growing needs for milk for the growing population, we must identify challenges, work on them to increase production and plan in this direction.”

Shri Satish Marathe, Director, RBI, said, “India has emerged as the largest milk producer globally and our per capita consumption has gone up to 400g per person. Dairy cooperatives have a huge role to play here. It is important to understand that dairy farmers get 75% of realised value only from dairy cooperatives unlike around 40% of realisation in private dairies. Primary milk societies must be multipurpose societies that perform multiple functions. Computerisation and digitisation is the next step. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has come up with a payment gateway, which will enable several rural institutions to go the digital way. This will further enable digitisation of financial services and encourage more financial inclusion of dairy cooperatives.”

Shri Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB, said, “The MoU executed between NDDB and Gujarat State Fertilizer Chemicals Ltd. (GSFC) to promote Organic Fertilisers based on bio-slurry produced from cattle dung. It will help NDDB in providing assured market linkages for Slurry Based Organic Fertilizers manufactured by affiliated institutions (Dairy Cooperatives, Milk Producer Companies etc.) apart from defining quality parameters, enforcement and getting relevant technical know-how from GSFC.”

GSFC & NDDB shall conduct joint research and development and utilize relevant resources to strengthen the initiative, Shri Meenesh Shah said.

Speaking about NDDB’s Manure Value Chain model, Chairman, NDDB said it has been an endeavour of our Prime Minister that we should strive towards cleaner and greener villages and also achieve cooking energy security for our rural households and reduced carbon emissions.
As a step towards that, Chairman, NDDB said that Government of Gujarat decided to collaborate with NDDB to implement Gobardhan scheme through Dairy Cooperative network in Gujarat and replicate NDDB’s Manure Value Chain model also known as “Zakariyapura Model” in every district of the state.
He further said the scheme has been kicked off with the Department of Rural Development, Government of Gujarat handing over the first installment of funds to NDDB. Under the scheme, a biogas cluster (covering 2 to 5 villages) of about 200 household level biogas plants would be set up in every district. In every such biogas cluster, an organic fertilizer production unit will also be set up to utilize the bio- slurry produced from these biogas plants.

One of the key components of the second phase of Swachh Bharat Mission is the Gobardhan scheme wherein effective management of dung is envisaged to generate energy and also organic fertilizer. Under the scheme Rs. 50 Lakh are provisioned for each district for installation of biogas plants and effective management of bio slurry produced from these plants.

Shri Mangaljeet Rai, Chairman, NCDFI, said, “Cooperatives have a key role to play in empowering dairy farmers and making quality affordable milk available to people. The Cooperative Ministry will help strengthen cooperative structures through policy initiatives. We request the government to fund digitisation of dairy cooperatives.”

Shri KC Superkar, Managing Director, NCDFI, delivered the Vote of Thanks for the Golden Jubilee Celebration of NCDFI, wherein he thanked dignitaries and representatives of the dairy cooperatives for consistent efforts in strengthening the dairy sector through the cooperative movement.
National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India Ltd. (NCDFI), based at Anand (Gujarat), is the apex organization for the cooperative dairy sector which was registered on December 07, 1970 and presently governed by Multi -States Cooperative Society Act. Its members include federal dairy cooperatives of states and union territories. At present, NCDFI has 19 Regular Members, 13 Associate Members and National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) as its Institutional Member. Primary objective of NCDFI is to facilitate the working of dairy cooperatives through coordination, networking and advocacy.