Dugdh Sankalan Sathi Mobile App

Dugdh Sankalan Sathi Mobile App

Why is in news? Union Minister of Heavy Industries Dr.Mahendra Nath Pandey Launches "Dugdh Sankalan Sathi Mobile App" to Transform Indian Dairy Industries

• Union Minister of Heavy Industries unveiled the ground-breaking "Dugdh Sanakalan Sathi Mobile App" at Mussorie, Uttarakhand.
• This innovative application, designed and developed by Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Limited (REIL), Jaipur, a “Mini Ratna” Central Public Sector Enterprises under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, is poised to make a lasting impact on the Indian Dairy Industries by addressing key challenges in the milk collection process.
• This mobile app aims to improve the quality of milk, foster transparency among stakeholders, and streamline operations at the grassroots village level, including Milk Cooperative Societies.
• Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said “Through this App Ministry of Heavy Industry has taken a revolutionary step towards realizing the commitment of Government of India to digitize the process and facilitate Direct Beneficiary Transfer to milk producers”.
• Recognizing the critical need for advancements in the dairy industry, REIL has developed a comprehensive cloud-based solution that leverages the latest state-of-the-art platform.
• This forward-thinking initiative reflects the Government of India’s commitment for digitizing processes and facilitating direct beneficiary transfers of the government subsidies to milk producers.
• This application will be contextually active in the field to improve operations at the grassroots level across all partnerships including milk producers, milk co-operative societies, milk organizations and state federations.
• The "Dugdh Sankalan Sathi Mobile App" will bring significant benefits for all stakeholders involved in the milk collection process, including milk producers, cooperative societies, milk unions, and state federations.
• Key features and benefits of the app include:
• Increased transparency, efficiency, and empowerment among stakeholders
• Online monitoring of daily milk poured at Milk Cooperative Societies
• Real-time milk price updates from the cloud server, ensuring transparency and eliminating human errors
• Direct beneficiary transfers of milk payment and government subsidies to the milk producers' bank accounts through the app
• Push notifications for milk collection to the milk producers' app
• Multilingual app with support for English, Hindi, Punjabi, Telugu, and more
• Dairy Industry in India:
• The India dairy market size is projected to grow from 124.93 billion in 2023 to 227.53 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 8.94% during the forecast period.
• In 2022, there was 39% jump in exports of dairy products.
• India is currently the largest producer of milk and one of the world’s largest exporter of dairy products. The Indian dairy industry contributes 5% of national income and directly supports over eight crore farmers.
• The major producers in India are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
• Key export destinations - Bangladesh, UAE, Bahrain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
• Moreover, the government has taken various initiatives/steps to the development of dairy industry in the country, a few initiatives includes Rashtriya Gokul Mission, National Dairy Development Board, State Cooperative Dairy Federation, National Programme for Dairy Development, Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme and so on.

Challenges in dairy sector:

• COVID - It led to a crash in prices and demand destruction which led to the inability of dairy farmers to invest in their cattle.
• Lumpy skin disease (LSD) has led to a death count of 1.9 lakh cattle which made capital losses for dairy farmers.
• Fodder inflation – According to ICAR scientists, fodder and feed account for 70 % of the cost of milk. Fodder inflation at 30% has been a critical factor for soaring milk prices.
• Milk shortage - Dairy products demand is growing rapidly with rising population, incomes, urbanisation and changing diets.
• Investment – There is a need for investment in supply chains in this capital intensive business.
• Cooperatives – They revolutionised dairying, but due to a variety of factors their success has not gone beyond Gujarat and Karnataka.
• The private dairy sector has surpassed the combined capacity of the dairy cooperatives and government dairies in the past 20 years” - 2022-23 Annual Report of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Dairying.