Uttar Pradesh government has mandated NDDB Dairy Services (NDS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to promote women empowerment and entrepreneurship by setting up women-owned milk producer companies to harness the dairying potential of the state’s 17 districts. A milk producer company is a farmer producer organisation (FPO) which embodies principles that are similar to cooperative societies.
Encouraged by the results of Balinee Milk Producer Company, Jhansi and Kashee Milk Producer Company, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh government announced ‘Mahila Samarthya Yojana’ (MSY) in the budget of 2021-22 to promote producer-owned enterprises exclusively owned by women and had allocated an amount of Rs. 200 crores in the budget. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath praised Balinee as a model organisation for women during the IDF World Dairy Summit 2022 last year.
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The project will be anchored by UP State Rural Livelihood Mission and the technical support will be provided by NDS. Under a collaborative agreement between UPSRLM and NDS, three women milk producer companies (MPCs) have been incorporated, namely, Saamarthya Milk Producer Company, Raebareli; Shri Baba Gorakhnath Kripaa Milk Producer Company, Gorakhpur and Srijanee Milk Producer Company, Bareilly which will together procure milk from over 2,800 villages of 17 districts enrolling 1.50 lakh women dairy farmers and procuring over 7 lakh litres of milk per day by the fifth year of operations.
| Milk Producer Company | Districts |
| Saamarthya Milk Producer Company, Raebareli | Raebareli, Sultanpur, Amethi, Ayodhya, Fatehpur, Kanpur Nagar, Pratapgarh |
| Shri Baba Gorakhnath Kripaa Milk Producer Company, Gorakhpur | Deoria, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Maharajganj |
| Srijanee Milk Producer Company, Bareilly | Bareilly, Rampur, Pilibhit, Kheri, Sitapur, Shahjahanpur |
On the initiative, C. Indumathy, State Mission Director, UP SRLM said, “MSY is a path-breaking scheme of UP government to promote women empowerment through skilling of rural women and supporting their entrepreneurship. Since its announcement, GoUP has earmarked a substantial outlay towards the implementation of the scheme and we are progressing well. UPSRLM, by using the expertise of NDS, is aiming at not only promoting women entrepreneurship in rural UP substantially but also bringing about a fundamental change in the lives of these women and their families.”
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Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB & NDDB Dairy Services said, “Uttar Pradesh is the second largest milk-producing state in the country, however, the state still has a large untapped potential and focused interventions in the state through producer-owned enterprises can immensely contribute to realise the Government’s vision of ‘Making India Dairy for the World’. This initiative of bringing together the women dairy farmers will not only provide market access and livelihood to women farmers but will also unleash the entrepreneurship potential of women belonging to the targeted 17 districts which are predominantly rural.”
NDDB Dairy Services functions as a delivery arm of the NDDB for field operations relating to promoting producer companies and productivity enhancement services which include the supply of high genetic merit semen doses, artificial insemination delivery services, embryo transfer, animal nutrition services and induction of high genetic merit live animals under the brand ‘SAG Live’.
