AMARAVATI: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy launched Jagananna Palavelluva- AP Amul Project in Krishna district virtually from his camp office here on Wednesday, where milk will be collected from 264 villages across the district by Amul.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that earlier there was a buyer's monopoly across the State due to which the dairy farmers incurred losses and received meagre income.

To change the old order government brought this initiative partnering with Amul, to give a fillip to the empowerment of women self-help groups by encouraging milk cooperatives in the government sector so that farmers can earn profitable revenue. As of date, through this project milk was being collected from 1046 villages in Guntur, Chittoor, Kadapa, Prakasam and West Godavari districts and now milk would be collected from 264 villages in Krishna district.

YS Jagan stated that Amul is not a company, it is the largest cooperative in the country and globally stands eighth in terms of milk processing. From last December, in all the five districts, the company had procured over 168.50 lakh litres of milk and paid a sum of Rs 71 crores to the dairy farmers, who were able to earn up to Rs 15 additionally on each litre than the existing price. In Krishna district alone, 37474 farmers have been identified along with 51 milk centres. He said that the farmers are earning Rs 20 more than on each litre of milk as Amul is paying Rs 74.78 per litre, while the Krishna Milk Union has been paying only Rs 44.80.

He said that Amul is also sharing profits with the farmers who supply milk for a minimum of 182 days and also providing quality fodder at low prices through AMCUs. In order to ensure all the women are being paid in a transparent manner on the basis of quality checks, bulk milk cooling units and automatic milk collection units would be set up as part of the Amul project in the next two years.

The Chief Minister stated that many dairy cooperatives have turned into private firms, as those in government have interests in private dairies, they never bothered to develop cooperatives or the welfare of dairy farmers. Because of Amul, all the other dairies are also paying a decent price to the dairy farmers, he added. On this occasion, he reminded that the government had established a Market Intervention Fund to avoid farmers from selling their crops at lower prices because of middlemen, and also procured all sorts of crops through price stabilisation fund by providing remunerative prices.

Minister for Fisheries and Animal Husbandry S. Appalaraju, Minister for Endowments Vellampally Srinivas, Agriculture Special Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah and A.P. Dairy Development Cooperative Federation MD A Babu and other officials of Amul were present at the event.

Also See In Pictures: Jagananna Palavelluva Launched