84
S
tate
of
I
ndia
’
s
L
ivelihoods
R
eport
2015
At present, all expenditures except the
salary of the CEO are borne by the company.
The company had to face losses during
the last two years but in the current year
(2015–16), due to retail marketing, the
company is in profits.
Key challenges being faced
Milk marketing
The company would like to ensure that the
unpasteurised milk is 100 per cent pure
and clean. This is a challenge due to limited
resources to invest in technology. Financing
for new technology (pasteurisers, pack-
ing machinery, quality control laboratory,
MIS with computer back-up) to scale up
operations further with quality, remains a
challenge for Maitree.
Limited resources
Maitree has limited financial and technical
capacity to invest in infrastructure. Finding
resources including loans is not easy. The
company also needs professionals in mar-
keting, quality control and finance. It also
needs to have adequate working capital to
pay the milk pourers on time.
Services to dairy farmers
Livestock assistants are on government
payroll. While some are trained and per-
form well, others do not. Moreover, there
are certified paravets who are not super-
vised well and indulge in lot of malprac-
tices. Hygiene factors in vet care centres
need improvement. Moreover, government
workers do not provide timely vaccina-
tions. SRIJAN covers only 40 per cent to
50 per cent of the animals in a village.
Partial vaccination cannot contain disease
spread. There is limited benefit out of AI
since non-graded animals still roam in the
villages and need to be castrated.
Feeding practices
In spite of training and awareness raising,
farmers do not use balanced feed. Cash-
in-hand is an issue for many smallholders.
Since they want immediate benefits out of
expenditure, during the dry period, feeding
practices are poor and they leave the animals
to fend for themselves.
Maitree is the product of grit and
determination of women and appropriate
professional support from SRIJAN. While
it has managed to survive and service the
poor dairy farmers, it continues to face
several challenges. The biggest challenge
faced by Maitree was that of getting organ-
ised. Acquiring both financial and non-
financial inputs at the right time has been
a continuing challenge. With women as the
target groups, gender dimensions had to be
addressed and concerted efforts had to be
taken up to groom women into leadership,
especially in market access. Substantial
investments need to be made over a pro-
longed period to promote such a producer
company. The current thinking among
development institutions that by supporting
producer collectives for three years it will
be possible to stabilise the PCs’ operations
is incorrect. A producer company can take
five to eight years to stabilise. Support and
linkage organisations need patience and
perseverance to ensure that the collectives
provide sustainable services to members’
livelihoods.
Case study 4.4: Sahayog clean milk
initiative (Madhya Pradesh)
Sahayog Clean Milk Private Limited
(SCMPL) is a private limited company
engaged in setting up comprehensive milk
collection and processing with an eventual
collection and chilling capacity of 200,000
litres per day in and aroundHarda district of
Madhya Pradesh. The company commenced
its operations in 2013 after the preparatory
work of surveys and farmers’ consultations
for about a year. The SCMPL has the objec-
tive of linking the dairy farmers to a reliable,
transparent and fair market in a business-
like and sustainable manner. Currently,
SCMPL collects about 50,000 litres of milk
per day from about 15,000 farmers through
more than 275 primary milk collection
centers (PMCs) covering about 300 villages.
The company has organised 275 PMC
at village level in the district of Harda and
