Introduction - Dairy

The dairy sector in the India has shown remarkable development in the past decade and India has now become one of the largest producers of milk and value-added milk products in the world. The dairy sector has developed through co-operatives in many parts of the State. During 1997-98, the State had 60 milk processing plants with an aggregate processing capacity of 5.8 million litres per day. In addition to these processing plants, 123 Government and 33 co-operatives milk chilling centres operate in the State.

With the increase in milk production. Maharashtra now regularly exports milk to neighbouring states. It has also intiated a free school feeding scheme, benefiting more than three million school children from over 19,000 schools all over the State.