AMARAVATI: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy launched Jagananna Palavelluva- AP Amul Project in West Godavari district virtually from his camp office on Friday. Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said the project was intended to give a fillip to the empowerment of women self-help groups by encouraging milk cooperatives in the government sector. The project was first started on December 2, and milk was being collected from 722 villages in Guntur, Chittoor, Kadapa and Prakasam districts and now milk would be collected from 153 villages in West Godavari district.

Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said that the government had kept its promise given to dairy farmers, by strengthening the milk cooperatives and offering remunerative price by signing up with Amul, which is the largest dairy cooperative in the country, where all the shareholders are dairy farmers. He said that Amul was paying remunerative prices in the market where women in Guntur, Chittoor, Kadapa and Prakasam districts were able to earn Rs5 to Rs15 more per litre than the existing price.

Further, the Chief Minister said 52.93 lakh litres of milk was so far collected from 13,739 women dairy farmers in 722 villages of Guntur, Chittoor, Kadapa and Prakasam districts, where a sum of Rs 24.54 crore was paid to them. Amul had paid Rs 4.06 crore more than the existing price by providing an additional income, he said. In order to ensure all the women are being paid in a transparent manner on the basis of quality check, bulk milk cooling units and automatic milk collection units would be set up in 9,899 villages at a cost of Rs 4,000 crore as part of the Amul project in the next two years.

Amul MD Sodhi said that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had brought revolutionary changes for the development of villages, especially in the dairy sector by encouraging women on a large scale. He said that the Amul company is being operated by the farmers and the profits of the company are being passed on to the farmers.

Minister for Fisheries and Animal Husbandry S. Appalaraju, Agriculture Special Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah and A.P. Dairy Development Cooperative Federation MD Babu were present at the event.

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