Samadhan. K. Khamkar

ABSTRACT

Milk production in India takes place in Millions of rural households scattered across the length and breadth of the country. The performance of the Indian Dairy sector over the last three decades has been extremely impressive. This can be attributed to successful implementation of the Operation Flood programme and other dairy development programmes implemented by the State and Central Governments. Before Operation Flood came into being, India was a net importer of dairy products, mainly milk powder. However, milk production has increased substantially and in 2006-07 it almost doubled from the 1991 levels to touch 100 million tons. During this period, the per capita availability of milk also increased by almost 38 percent. This phenomenal growth in milk production has been due to demand-side development and supply-side promotions – increased demand for value-added products by consumers and extensive dairy development programmes.