Union Minister for Home and Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah on October 7 presented National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India Ltd (NCDFI) award to Assam’s largest dairy cooperative, Purabi Dairy, as second best performing dairy cooperative in institutional sales at the Eastern and North-Eastern Cooperative Dairy Conclave 2022 in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim.
The ‘Eastern and North-Eastern Cooperative Dairy Conclave 2022’ held at Gangtok on October 7 was inaugurated by Union minister Shri Amit Shah. The conclave was organized by National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India Ltd (NCDFI) in association with Sikkim Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd and support of the Sikkim government.
Sri Mangal Jit Rai, Chairman, NCDFI in his welcome address highlighted the intervention of Govt of Sikkim to support the cooperative dairy, specially for introduction of special milk incentive to the milk producers of Sikkim, which has helped Sikkim get into high growth trajectory and NCDFI is looking forward to a brighter cooperative dairy movement across East and North East of India.
The Sikkim Milk Union won the first position, Purabi Dairy (West Assam Milk Producers’ Co-operative Union Ltd.) won the second position while Mother Dairy Kolkata won the third position. Sudha (Bihar), Medha (Jharkhand), Omfed (Odisha), Bhagiradhi (West Bengal) and Dimul (Nagaland) were given active participation awards on the occasion.
The award for WAMUL (Purabi Dairy), was received from Shri Amit Shah, Union Minister for Home and Cooperation by Shri Meenesh Shah as Chairman WAMUL and Shri SB Bose, Managing Director WAMUL.
Addressing the conclave, the Union Home and Cooperation Minister said that milk production is the only way for inclusive development, women empowerment, poverty alleviation and doubling of farmer’s income. Shri Shah pointed out that the market for milk and milk products is huge and therefore dairying has an enormous potential for economic development. He emphasized that the Cooperative Dairying especially has a major role to play as it is in this model that more than 70% of consumer rupee gets transferred to the producers.
Shri Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister, Home Affairs & Cooperation inaugurated phase I & kick-started phase II of Manure Management Project jointly funded by NDDB & Sustain Plus Energy Foundation, implemented by Sikkim Milk Union.
Shri Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB mentioned that dairy cooperatives will bring prosperity in the East & North Eastern region which is blessed with resources required for dairying. This model has been successfully demonstrated by NDDB in Assam & Jharkhand.Chairman, NDDB also explained about the manure management interventions being promoted by NDDB, which is akin to a new revolution providing multiple benefits to our rural households- cooking fuel, organic manure and income from surplus slurry and also promotion of green energy.
The event was attended by Chief Minister of Sikkim, Shri Prem Singh Tamang (Golay); Education Minister of Sikkim, Shri KungaNimaLepcha; Speaker, Sikkim Legislative Assembly, Shri Arun Kumar Upreti ji; Minister of Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Services, Agriculture, Horticulture and Labour Departments, Government of Sikkim, Shri Lok Nath Sharma; Minister of Cooperation, Rural Development and Ecclesiastical Departments, Government of Sikkim, Ven. Sonam Lama; Chairman, ITDC, Shri Sambit Patra; Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation, Government of India, Shri Gyanesh Kumar; Chief Secretary, Government of Sikkim, Shri VB Pathak; Chairman, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Shri Meenesh Shah, among others.
Leading dairy farmers and MDs of the cooperative Milk Unions and State Dairy Federations from the East and Northeast regions also participated in the event.
