To promote inter-state cooperation, Niti Aayog and Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation are working jointly to implement Gujarat’s successful dairy cooperative model in Uttarakhand, a senior official said on Thursday.
Niti Aayog senior adviser (Agriculture) Neelam Patel said regular engagements with states/Union Territories are convened at the Aayog to enable dissemination of best practices across the states.
One such initiative is establishing cooperative dairy plants and developing vegetable value chains in Uttarakhand by Gandhinagar District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), Patel said.
While per capita availability of milk in Uttarakhand is 447 grams/day against 615 grams/day in Gujarat during 2019-20, cooperatives in Uttarakhand procured only around 4 per cent of the milk produced in the state against 52 per cent in Gujarat.
Dairy cooperatives in Gujarat have the highest member producers (3.7 million against 1.6 lakh in Uttarakhand), milk procurement (24.6 million kgs per day against 1.9 lakh kgs) and sales of liquid milk (5.4 million litres per day against 1.6 lakh litres in Uttarakhand).
She said Niti Aayog has now come up with the plan of implementing Gujarat’s successful model of dairy cooperatives in Uttarakhand in collaboration with the best in business.
“We at Niti Aayog try to take the best models from one part of the country and use it in another if it is feasible,” Patel said.
