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Sunday, Feb 08, 2009
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‘Amirthaa’ milking the best out of government scheme

Karthik Madhavan

ERODE: The credit for milking the best out of a scheme should go to SP Mani and Mohan Dairy, producer of packed milk and curd under the ‘Amirthaa’ brand name.

The Erode-based company, as part of its expansion drive in 2006, went in for a Rs. 2.25-crore project.

In executing the project the company took the help of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) which brought the project under the Scheme for Development/Strengthening of Agriculture Marketing Infrastructure. As per the scheme guidelines, NABARD offered Rs. 50 lakh as subsidy, the maximum amount possible. With the subsidy and the remaining money as loan from a nationalised bank, the dairy imported machinery to improve the quality of milk. “We bought a homogeniser to improve the quality of milk,” says R. Mohanasundaram, managing partner.

It also invested in a few more machines to minimise human intervention, improve technology and cut production cost. The result: the dairy improved its market share from three to five per cent in the packed milk, curd category in the State. Tamil Nadu’s consumption is about 65 lakh litres a day, 70 per cent of which is met by the organised sector that is, packed suppliers.

Mr. Mohanasundaram says as part of the expansion drive the company also invested in refrigerated vans to reach more markets. “Today we are able to supply milk to even Kanyakumari market,” he says. “Before the expansion drive, we processed 55,000 litres a day, which now stands at 75,000 litres a day,” the managing partner says and attributes the success to NABARD.

Assistant General Manager, NABARD, Erode, S. Srinivasan says SP Mani and Mohan Dairy was the first company in the State to avail the scheme and one of the very few to have milked the best out of it. In other districts, the scheme has been used to subsidise the purchase of combined harvesters.

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