Case Study:banaskantha Dairy, Gujarat

Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd., Palanpur

How it came about The Banaskantha Distt. Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd., Palanpur, popularly known as Banas Dairy was founded on 31/1/1969, when Late Shri Galbabhai Patel, Founder Chairman and a well respected Leader, founded this Dairy by consolidating eight village level cooperative milk societies in Vadgam and Palanpur Taluka of the District. The foundation stone was laid down on 14/1/1971 at 122 acres land to set up a dairy plant under the Operation Flood Programme launched by Facts & Figures o o

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: Cooperative Dairy : Cooperative Dairy registered under Gujarat Cooperative Societies Act : District Dairy Union : January 1969 : Banaskantha District Coop. Milk Producers Union Ltd., Banas Dairy PB No.20, Palanpur - 385 001 : Phone : 02742 255381-85 Fax : 02742 252723 Email : [email protected] Website : www.banasdairy.coop : 1250 with individual membership of 2 lakh & Share capital of 25.67 Crores. : 1300 including officials : 940 crores with profit of 6.8 crores and reserves of around 9 crores.

National Dairy Development Board. On 5/2/1971, the Dairy started functioning with a capacity of 1.5 lakh litres of milk. Today, the Dairy has a capacity of more than 15 lakh litres of milk per day and it is handling more than 16 lakh litres of milk per day and doing a business of more than 3.5 crore per day. The Dairy has been a land mark development activity for the District and is in a position to provide remunerative milk prices to producer members which ultimately becomes instrumental to bring socio economic changes in the life of its producer members. There are 1250 dairy societies as members of this Union, which covers almost 95 percent of revenue villages falling in the area of the Dairy. Through these societies the Union is collecting milk of more than 2 lakh individual members which consists of 1.6 lakh male members and around 50,000 female members. The Union

collects milk from these Societies either through cans or through bulk milk chillers or the milk is collected at chilling centres. At present the Union has five chilling centres. Collection of milk – New Experience In 1991, the Union faced some problem regarding collection of milk. Its daily collection fell below 70,000 litres per day and it had difficulty in running its 30 TDP plant. It was the time when its present Chairman Shri Parthibhai G. Bhatol was elected as the Chairman. It was a great challenge before him to survive and succeed in those circumstances. With the help of his Board and Management, he tried to assess the reason for poor collection of milk and inability of the members to supply milk to the Union. It was found that most of the villagers thought that selling milk is like selling their sons and therefore they needed to be educated through a big campaign which required lot of strategy, planning & resources

and overall meetings with the villagers and members, to educate and convince them to supply the milk to the Union. The Chairman Shri Parthibhai Bhatol prepared a massive Programme for visiting 4-5 villages every day and convincing the villagers about necessity to provide milk to the Union, otherwise the Institution will die. For two years this Programme continued, and the milk started overflowing which forced the Union to even declare one or two days as milk holidays, so that the milk can be collected only according to the capacity of the Union. Once encouraged with this experience, the Management thought of going for phase II of the Dairy, which has earmarked a new chapter for the Banaskantha Union. At present, the phase II has a capacity of 60 TDP and there are two other plants with capacity of 30 TDP and 20 TDP. Bulk Units

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The Dairy Union always tried to have best quality milk. But the milk supplied through cans

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was invariably getting sour because of the distance involved in bringing the milk from the primary societies to the chilling centres or to the Dairy Union. With the initiative of the Chairman Shri Parthibhai, the first milk cooling unit with a capacity of 10,000 litres was installed at Chairman’s village and villagers from other places were brought to this village to see the benefit of this unit. After seeing this experience, many societies came forward and at present 309 bulk milk cooling units have been installed by the Societies and the Union is contemplating to install these bulk milk coolers at all the societies by the year 2008-2009. There are lot of facilities the Union is providing for installation of this bulk milk coolers which include interest free loan from NDDB and a premium of Rs.5 per kg fat due to better quality of milk supplied through these centres. Governance Structure The Dairy is collectively owned by its primary societies, having elected

12 Directors and 3 nominated Directors from 1300 societies. There is a provision of co-opting lady members, but at the moment that provision has been changed by the cooperative law, so therefore, no lady member is serving in the board. All Directors are quite active and they invariably attend the meetings which are conducted at least once in a month. The Directors are paid nominal sitting fee and are also paid to-and-fro transportation charges for attending the meeting. The Directors are deputed for Training Programme so as to enable them to know what is happening in the market and also sharpening their decision making skills. Normally in each board meeting the head of every department of the union is asked to make presentation about its area of operation and the performance during the period. The Directors also review the stock statement every month and also involve themselves into various negotiations planned by the management for purchase, sales, research and development, and

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other activities of the Dairy Union. The Directors meeting is often organised for at least half a day but sometimes it can extend to even 2-3 days. The agenda is often issued to them at least a week in advance and most of the members come prepared for the meeting. Galbabhai Dairy Coop. Training Centre In 1984, NDDB with the aid of World Bank set up Galbabhai Dairy Coop. Training Centre at the Banaskantha Union, for training needs of Dairy Unions like Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Baroda, & Banaskantha. In September 2000 this training centre was transferred to the Banas Union but its area of operation remained the same. Initially, the faculty and staff was deputed by NDDB, but once this Centre was transferred to the Union, the staff was also absorbed. This Training Centre conducts Training Programmes on Basic Artificial Insemination of 40 days duration and it conducts at least 5-6 such Programmes in a year. This Programme is attended by milk testers, secretaries or

clerks of primary societies. Other prominent Programmes organised by this Centre are – Artificial Insemination Refresher Programme (5 days), Veterinary First Aid (10 days), Dairy Animal Management Program (3 days), Vision Mission Strategy for villagers (3 days), Trainers Training Programme for one or two days. Besides the above normal programmes, this Centre also undertakes some environment friendly programmes like Tree Plantation, Blood Donation Camps, Education Programmes leading to addiction free life and street plays for increasing literacy and strengthening Dairy Cooperatives. Dairy Husbandry The animal husbandry department is one of the significant contributors to the development of Dairy Union. It basically performs two functions i.e. animal health, and animal breeding. There are 94 veterinary Doctors which are available 24 hours for taking care of the milch cattle of the members. One of the important feature of this

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Department is the online redressal of complaints lodged by the members concerning animal’s health. This system ensures online booking by the member with any of the thirteen centres located at different districts. On receipt of the complaint either on telephone or written, a list of all the complaints received in that centre is compiled on the computer. A Doctor on duty is given this list along with the full details of the animals for attending to the complaints. If possible, a route chart is also passed on to the Doctor for his convenience. The visit, scheduling list include the number of the complaint, society name, name of the member, animal symptoms, as described by the member. After the Doctor attends the calls, he submits his visiting booking slips with the Centre which will compile all the details of visits undertaken by the Doctors. To facilitate the member to have concessional treatment of their animals, coupons are provided to each Society @ Rs.60 per visit. The members can buy these coupons

from the Society, and at the time of visit of the Doctor this coupon can be handed over to the Doctor in lieu of his visiting fee. In case the coupons are not available with the member the consultation fee of Rs.75 can be paid to the Doctor in cash. Besides the regular care of the animals, the Dairy Husbandry Department also takes a preventive programme for vaccination of the animals before the monsoon season, free of cost, particularly for avoiding foot and mouth diseases. The Department has also opened 420 artificial insemination centres through out the district, where at least one person has been trained to handle this activity. The kit required for artificial insemination is also available in these Centres. The Union has started a big project worth Rs.73 crore in collaboration with the Govt. of Gujarat, providing financial assistance for purchase of cattle and buffalo to BPL families of tribal community in Amirgarh and Danta Talukas. Under the

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project, provision has been made for selective breeding, extension and disease diagnostic facilities, which will facilitate preventive care of milch animals and also need to clean milk production in that area. Banaskantha is known for kankrej breed of cows and bulls. Under DIPA Programme (Dairy Herd Improvement Programme Actions), in collaboration with NDDB, lot of effort has been made by the Union for the preservation of this breed. The Union has started online veterinary centres, animal breeding complex at Dama in encompassing centralized semen collection centre, care and management of kankrej animal, besides DIPA Herd. The Union is maintaining 25 kankrej and 19 DIPA Centres in dairy cooperative societies. Banas District is drought prone area. It faces scarcity of green and dry fodder most of the year. Due to insufficient availability of fodder, many a times, milk production decreases besides animal succumb

to malnutrition. The Union has, therefore, started cattle feed plant at no-profit-no-loss basis known Banas Dan, so as to balance the nutritional deficiencies in the animals. The Union is also providing assistance to the members to have pakka cattle manger, chaff cutter and AI teravis. A maximum amount of Rs.10,000 is granted for construction for pakka manger while 40% grant is given for purchase of chaff cutter to the members. The scheme though expired in 2007 but in the interest of its members, the Union has extended it upto 2010. For artificial insemination, the milk union has made a provision of 40% financial assistance for AI teravis to be installed in farm/field of member producers since 2003. The scheme has also been extended upto 2010. The Union provides AI services to members at their door steps. In order to motivate the members, the Union has implemented a motivation scheme in the form of a competition in collaboration with GCMMF. Under the

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scheme, the cash prizes are given away to top 10 AI workers and AI Centres on the basis of their work performance measured by a special system of critical evaluation and final audit marks. These prizes are given to the rankers during the milk days. There are other motivational schemes like ideal DCS and rotation shield scheme where a prize of Rs.11,000 is given to the best Dairy Cooperative Society. Similarly, there is a milk competition scheme, where at least 10 prizes at district level in three categories of kankrej cow, cross breed cow and buffalo are given for maximum per day milk production in these categories. There are first, second and third prizes in three categories, overall 30 prizes are given. Since one-third of the members of the different dairy cooperative societies are women, therefore, Union has announced a Shresth Banas Laxmi Scheme for entire Banaskantha District, to encourage women to work for more and hygienic milk production. Under this

scheme women members who have poured milk worth of Rs.5 lakhs and more in a year would be eligible for the entry. Whosoever tops under this scheme would be honoured with a prize of Rs.11,000, certificate and a memento from the Union. The Banas Laxmi Scheme is also applied at taluka level. Under this scheme the women member who poured milk worth Rs.2 lakh or more per year would get cash prize of Rs.5,000, Rs.4,000 and Rs.3,000 for first, second and third prize respectively in each taluka, besides a certificate and memento by the Union. Success Measures One of the most successful measures of the Dairy is committed involvement of its elected leaders who have taken all pains for the development of Dairy Cooperative societies in the district. The members are also quite attached with the Institution and feel proud to be associated with the Union. The Animal Husbandry Department of the Union is doing

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wonderful service for not only maintaining good health of the animals but also working for producing better breeds so that milk production could be enhanced. The Training Institution of the Dairy has been playing an effective role in not only educating the members but also the positive role they are playing in protection of the environment. The Union can boast of excellent system of milk collection. There is hardly any wastage and members are getting one of the highest price paid by any Union in Gujarat State. It is heartening to note that the Union has given direct employment to 1300 persons and indirectly engaged more than 5 lakh people of the district. The Union has introduced latest technology while commissioning the phase II of the dairy, which can handle more than 6 lakh litres of liquid milk and having capacity of producing 60 TDP of milk powder. One of the fascinating feature of the Union is application of Kaizen approach in almost all departments of the Dairy. The performance of each department is

noted and audited, and every month top ten Kaizen are declared and honoured by the Management. All the employees bear the same uniform which shows a uniformity and commitment of the employees towards their organisation. However, their pay structure and working conditions require some re-look by the management. Mission for the future The road map developed by the Dairy in 1999 is going to be over by 2009. The Union has already planned to set up its mission for 2020. It has envisaged to set up a hospital where the member of primary societies can be given free medical facilities. The Union has also planned to start an educational complex where besides engineering, management education to the people of Banaskantha district can be given. The Union is also planning to donate Rs.5 crore to Danta Agricultural University for setting up a Degree course in Dairy Technology so that more and more people from Banaskantha District can

be trained in this field and employed by the Dairy. At present the Dairy is producing products like liquid milk, ice cream, ghee, butter, powdered milk, OHT and few minor byproducts like butter milk. It has decided to modernize its phase I and phase II projects which were launched in seventies and early eighties so that whole Dairy can be computerized. It has also planned to launch ERP so that production, marketing, inventory, distribution activities can be coordinated. It has a vision to become the Number One Cooperative Dairy in Asia.

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