'Banglar Dairy outlets should be present in every ward of urban local bodies & in every block under the Panchayat'

kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged the state Animal Resources Development (ARD) department to expand Banglar Dairy outlets further to the town areas in different districts to ensure that milk and a variety of milk products can be made easily available to more and more common people.

She asked the state Fisheries department to make necessary arrangements for selling fishes too in the morning from these outlets.

"I feel there should be at least one Banglar Dairy outlet in every ward of the urban local bodies and in every block under the Panchayat. We can also take it up with the state Fisheries department and make arrangements of fish sale from these outlets. This will be of immense benefit to the common people," Banerjee said addressing an administrative review meeting at Bankura on Tuesday.

She said: "Banglar Dairy being the state's own brand, milk packets are priced at least Rs 2 per litre less than other brands available."

Apart from pouch milk, paneer, yogurt, ghol, Lassi, ghee and confectionery items like Peda are being sold from Banglar Dairy outlets.

Bengal government's own brand Banglar Dairy was rolled out in November last year and it opened up the opportunity for all the dairy processing plants to start processing milk and its products under this brand and make them available to people maintaining prescribed quality standards.

Before the formation of Banglar Dairy, the milk of rural Bengal was sold through the state government's project Mother Dairy, Calcutta. However, there were a lot of limitations while operating the supply chain with Mother Dairy, Calcutta, being a project.

Vivek Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary of ARD department said that with the increase of procurement price by the government since April 1, more farmers are coming forward to sell their milk. "Earlier, the Kansabati Milk union in Bankura would sell 4500 litres of milk daily, but yesterday (Monday) it sold 23000 litres of milk. After another 15 days we will be selling 12000 litres of milk and 1000 kg of milk products from Bankura district alone," Kumar said.

The state has been offering an enhanced procurement rate of Rs 34 per litre up from Rs 31 per litre to the milk farmers since April 1. The increased rate is an outcome of the state's decision to raise the incentive from Rs 4 to Rs 7.