Consumers would soon be able to buy milk and milk products of the Omfed online and get those delivered at their homes. The Omfed, which is on an expansion mode, is chalking out a roadmap for next few years. The home delivery is one of the proposals, which was approved by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik while reviewing the activities of the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department here on Friday. With private players moving into the milk industry, the State-run Omfed is taking up the challenge seriously.
During last one year, it has added to its capacity and improved its bottom line with profit and sharing it with the farmers, thanks to the efforts its CMD Bishnupada Sethi. The Omfed’s daily average procurement of milk has now increased to 5.55 lakh litres. With more flow of milk, the Omfed has decided to set up an automated 5-lakh litre-per-day-capacity plant with an outlay of Rs285 crore. The present Omfed management has decided not to go in for milk powder. Milk powder purchase was high on the agenda of the earlier management against the wishes of farmers and the Omfed used to buy milk powder more than procuring milk from farmers.
A new Omfed plant is coming up at Salapada in Keonjhar district. With the support of the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA), the Omfed is setting up an Odisha Tribal Women Dairy Project with an outlay of Rs46.45 crore which would be implemented in tribal districts. In next three years, the project would be operational in 35 Tribal Sub-Plan Areas of the State.