It started as a Rs 2-per-litre subsidy to Karnataka’s milk producers by the then BJP government under BS Yeddyurappa in July 2008. On May 13, 2013, the day the new Siddaramaiah-led Congress administration assumed office, the “incentive” – given to farmers over and above the procurement price paid by dairy cooperative societies – was doubled to Rs 4 per litre. And in November 2016, it was further raised to Rs 5 a litre.
But Siddaramaiah’s government hasn’t stopped with ‘Ksheera Dhare’ – as the subsidy/incentive scheme for dairy farmers is called. In August 2013, it launched a ‘Ksheera Bhagya’ scheme. This one provides a 150-ml glass of free milk daily to around 1.04 crore children: 65 lakh studying in government/government-aided schools and another 39 lakh in pre-school anganwadi centres. The free milk was initially given for three days of the week and, in July 2017, extended to five days.
Both schemes cost money. An amount of Rs 1,206 crore has been budgeted for Ksheera Dhare this fiscal, the same as in 2017-18. The outlay for Ksheera Bhagya was Rs 700 crore last fiscal, which is projected to go up to Rs 840 crore in 2018-19 because of the free milk being made available for more number of days. The combined outgo will, thus, be well over Rs 2,000 crore.
But the two schemes, Ksheera Dhare in particular, have definitely given a huge boost to dairying in Karnataka. Between 2007-08 (before Yeddyurappa set the ball rolling) and 2012-13, milk procurement by the 14 district unions affiliated to the Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation (KMF) rose from an average 30.25 lakh kg per day (LKPD) to 49.06 LKPD. In the period after Siddaramaiah enhanced the producer’s subsidy, the average procurement rose to 70.77 LKPD in 2017-18. In other words, a more than 2.3 times jump in 10 years! Milk production in the state, too, has gone up from 42.44 lakh tonnes to 65.62 lakh tonnes between 2007-08 and 2016-17.