June 29, 2011
Baroda Dairy's turnover hits US$123 million
Baroda Dairy's turnover for the financial year 2010-11 is INR553.45 crore (US$123 million).
This is INR80 crore (US$17.8 million) more than the previous year when the dairy union had registered INR473 crore (US$105) turnover. The dairy declared this during its 54th annual general meeting (AGM) which was held on Tuesday (June 28).
At the same time, the co-operative union is also mulling steps to increase milk collection. Traditionally, Baroda Dairy has to rely on other bigger dairies of Gujarat to meet demand of milk in the city's market.
"We are conducting a survey in villages on Vadodara-Madhya Pradesh border where there are no co-operative structures in place. We will start procuring milk from around 70 villages of MP neighbouring our district through which we expect to increase our procurement by around 50,000 litres per day," Baroda Dairy's chairman Narendra Patel alias Mukhi said.
"We have paid INR16 crore (US$3.6 million) as price difference to our members (farmers, who deliver milk at village level co-operatives).
During last year, average procurement stood at 3.79 lakh litres per day (LLPD) whereas the peak procurement on a single day during the month of January was 4.6 LLPD," dairy's in-charge managing director V C Patel said, adding that the union pays an average of INR394 (US$8.75) per kilogramme of fat to its farmers (milk producers).
Unlike last year, the AGM passed away peacefully without any major hiccups. Representatives of some village level milk co-operative societies however demanded that the union should decrease the price at which cattle feed is provided to the members or increase the per kilogramme fat price paid to the members. The dairy union has also decided to complete its ongoing projects like setting up Savli chilling centre, a new parlour and raw milk receiving dock (RMRD) during this year.
