Aavin has increased milk sales from over 14.3 lakh litres per day in Chennai during May this year to over 15 lakh litres per day now, Minister for Milk and Dairy Development T. Mano Thangaraj said on Monday.
During an interaction with The Hindu at the Secretariat, Mr. Thangaraj said the revenue from the sales of milk products have increased from ₹1.52 crore a day to over ₹2.4 crore a day. The average milk procurement from farmers during October this year was over 28.39 lakh litres a day, while the sales of milk during this month stood at over 30.38 lakh litres a day, he said.
When responding to a query, the Minister spoke about Aavin having introduced a new variant — Delite, which has 3.5% fat and 8.5% SNF (nutrient portion known as solids non fat) and in addition has Vitamin A and D.
“We wondered about the necessity to include more fat and so we are selling it without any addition or reduction of fat. We want to make available to people such a product. The medical world too says there is no need for additional fat for a normal human being,” the Minister contended.
If people wanted milk with less or more fat in it, Aavin has two options for them too — blue, for those who want less fat and orange for those who want more fat, he said. Delite is priced at ₹44 a litre and none in the country was selling milk with 3.5% fat and other nutrients at ₹44 a litre, he maintained.
Since his assuming office in May this year, the Minister said he has introduced several reforms in various sections of the Dairy Development department, which has yielded results.
Of the 11,000 plus primary milk producers’ cooperative societies across the State, about 1,000 were liquidated, another 1,000 were dormant and only over 9,400 were actively involved in milk procurement in May this year, he said.
“Since the time I took over, 373 more societies began procurement. These societies were either newly-formed or the liquidated and dormant ones were made active. This brought in 10,000 litres milk more a day,” the Minister said.
Asked about the charges levelled against Aavin by BJP State president K. Annamalai recently, Mr. Thangaraj said they were “non-sensical” and an “anti-campaign” carried out only to benefit a “Gujarat company”.
“They want to malign the image of Aavin so that Aavin gets a bad name among the people and it would help other companies trying to expand in Tamil Nadu,” Mr. Thangaraj charged.
Since assuming office, the Minister said he has ensured that over 31,000 farmers have obtained loans to the extent of ₹105 crore for cattle maintenance and over 14,000 farmers got loans for purchasing milch cows. Over 71,000 applications for loans were presently being scrutinised.
Mr. Thangaraj maintained that there was no delay in payment made to farmers over procurement and dues were being cleared within a period of 10 days. As for the other reforms, he said that contract workers in Aavin were being paid in their bank accounts and electricity bills were reduced by about ₹42 lakh.
About 390 officers were being sent in four batches for training in administrative practices, while quality control officials were being trained in FSSAI standards.
