Indian Dairy Association (North Zone) organized XL-Dairy Industry Conference in New Delhi from 2nd to 5th February, 2012 to focus on the challenges facing dairy sector. The Conference was inaugurated at Siri Fort Auditorium and followed with Technical Session and Exhibition at the Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi.
Talking to Indiancooperative.com Mr R.S. Khanna ,Secretary General – XL Dairy Industry Conference told that around 1800 delegates participated in the XL-DIC where 100 delegates were from abroad. They include our neighbouring countries, European Union and USA.
A major highlight of the Conference was the Dairy Exhibition which provided an opportunity for around 70 exhibitors to showcase their products in approximately 140 stalls. Overseas participation includes 8 to 9 French companies which put up 7 stalls. Secondly some Joint Venture Companies like ISF, Tetrapak and Gaea put up more than 20 stalls.
Despite India being the largest milk producing nation in the world the Indian Dairy Industry is beset by a host of problems. Milk production which had shown a rapid growth of 4 to 5 per cent per annum during the last 25 years has slackened to 3.5 per cent per annum during the 11th Five Year Plan.
Milk is the number one agricultural commodity and has made remarkable contribution to the national growth. However, the dairy sector has been generally neglected. Allocation of funds for the dairy development is less than 8% of that allocated to agriculture. Despite being the most important item of food, it never got the status of food processing sector.
In recent times India has made considerable progress in dairy equipment manufacture. However, due to certain constraints, equipment for packaging of butter, cheese, paneer and other traditional products are inadequate.
The IDA advisory given to the GOI include enhancing milk production and milch animal productivity, and ensuring clean and quality milk production, processing and packaging.
All new dairies and cold chains which qualify for income tax exemption in terms of finance bill 2010-11 should be exempted from payment of MAT.
It is widely expected that GST will replace VAT with effect from 1st April, 2012. It is recommended that Government should create a special class of industries with a lower rate of GST — about 4% — and this should be applicable to milk products which are currently not subjected to excise duty.
IDA has further advocated that there should be appreciably lower rate of service tax on services used by the dairy industry.
This year the Association has reiterated its recommendation for total exemption of Central Excise Duty on dairy equipment and machinery which are essential requirements for clean milk production and processing/packaging of milk and milk products.
Establishment of a dairy plant capable to produce export oriented dairy products like SMP, Whole Milk Powder, Casein requires huge capital. The Agriculture sector is getting term loan at a concessional rate of 4 per cent for investment in processing and value addition. It is, therefore, recommended that dairy industry should be given the status of agriculture sector.
Excise duty on condensed milk, ice cream, all kinds of food mixes, including instant food mixes, should be abolished.
In the past IDA had advised Govt. of India that district and state level dairy cooperatives should be exempted from the payment of income tax since this will provide them funds for development of dairying in the rural areas.
Concessions for cattle feed was also demanded.
IDA also saw some of the major changes to occur by 2020 such as increase in size of the dairy farms, Fodder production replacing grain production, increasing support for frozen semen, embryos, and artificial insemination and Private sector emerging stronger than cooperatives.
The IDA has had the privilege of being headed by persons of national and international fame. The luminaries included Sardar Datar Singh, Dr. K.C. Sen, Dr. Z.R. Kothawalla, Dr. D.N. Khurody, Dr. V. Kurien, Dr. P. Bhattacharya.
The IDA is headquartered in Delhi with zonal branches existing in Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi. It has State Chapters at Gujarat (Anand), Kerala (Thrissur), Rajasthan (Jaipur), Punjab (Chandigarh), Bihar (Patna) and Uttarakhand (Dehradun).