Dairy Industry In India

In India, dairying has been practiced as a rural cottage industry since the remote past. Semi-commercial dairying started with the establishment of military dairy farms and cooperative milk unions throughout the country towards the end of the nineteenth century. The dairy sector in the India has shown remarkable development in the past decade and India has now become one of the largest producers of milk and value-added milk products in the world. More than 2,445 million people economically active in agriculture in the world, probably 2/3 or even more of them are wholly or partly dependent on livestock farming. India is endowed with rich flora & Fauna & continues to be vital avenue for employment and income generation, especially in rural areas. India, which has 66% of economically active population, engaged in agriculture, derives 31% of Gross Domestic Product GDP from agriculture. The Development of Dairy Industry in India has been acknowledged the world over as one of the most successful development programmers in the world. Today, milk is India's largest 'Crop' in terms of its output value, even surpassing the major cereals like rice and wheat. India's milk comes from more than 70 million small producers with an average herd size of just about two animals. Today our dairy sectors employees 8% of the country's labour force and contributes 9% of our GDP. About 15 - 40% of the farmer's monthly income comes from milk. Thus, the dairy industry has had both a social and an economic role to play in the development of rural India. Dairy in India is unique concerning availability of large proportion of buffalo milk for processing. The dairy business in India is estimated at Rs.800 billion.

The major milk producing states in the country are Uttar Pardesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu accounting for about 75% of the total production of milk in the country.

History
Milkfed is not an unknown name for the people of Punjab. It is very popular among the people. There is a very long history behind this popularity. In 1959, in a village named 'Verka' near Amritsar, Chief Minister of Punjab Sardar Partap Singh Kairon established a Dairy Development Corporation for safeguards of farmers and increase dairy business. After sometimes four more Milk Plants were established i.e. in Chandigarh, Patiala, Patiala and Bathinda. Thereafter it progressed and the number of Milk Plants roses to 8 Plants up to 1980. Before 1981 it is fully under the control of Punjab Govt. But after it in 1981 the Govt. has developed its name from Punjab State Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd. into MILKFED Punjab. All the plants were controlled by Head Office which is established at Chandigarh. Only one balance sheet was prepared for all plants in Punjab and Profit & Loss for all the plants was prepared collectively. But in 1981 all plants started to make their own Balance Sheet and calculate Profit & Loss for their own plant. The fully Co-operative Society System was adopted and presently is in continue.

Objectives of the study Objectives of the study are as follows: To analyze Market share of verka milk in comparison to competitor. To study the perception of consumer at Distt. Amritsar regarding the products of verka. To analyze the market performance of Verka