NAMPCO

Nagai Milk Producers Company (NAMPCO)
Nagapattinam is a cattle friendly district but due to the lack of remunerative markets and low economies of scale at individual levels, dairying has not been generally viewed as a viable income generating activity. Dairy development through collectivization was seen as a viable option and planned accordingly.

Designed on the famed Anand Pattern, the Nagai Milk Producers’ Company (NAMPCO) is a district level Federation of Village level Milk Collectives. This is a two- tier system with the Primary Milk Collectives at the village level federating into the district level federation. NAMPCO, the Federation, has been registered under the Producer Company Act.

A fully automated Milk processing plant has been set up under this Federation It is with great pride that the members of NAMPCO claim ownership of the first milk processing unit in this district. Apart from chilling, pasteurizing, homogenizing and packing of milk, it also has facilities for cream separation, ghee production and Milk Peda production.

Village level Primary Milk Collectives:
Eight milk collectives, on the lines of Anand Pattern, have already been formed with 374 members. The average milk collection from the seven societies is estimated to be about 900- 1000 lpd during peak seasons and 300 lpd during lean seasons. As the setting up of these societies was fairly recent, the peak collection is estimated based on the experience of the only society which has been through both lean and flush periods. Payment is two-axis, quality-based and is dependent on the FAT and SNF of the milk procured from each farmer.

Each collective is staffed by one Milk Collector and a Milk Tester, who are educated youngsters chosen from the village and trained in collecting, testing and book- keeping. Hence apart from the direct benefits of remunerative payment for milk producers, employment is also generated from within the village.

Milk collected from each producer is tested for Fat and SNF and documented in their passbooks as well as in the society register on a daily basis. A ready reckoner for calculating their procurement price is available at the society for transparency. Payment is made once a fortnight. Local sale of milk is also permissible up to 10% of the total collection.

The milk collected is then taken to the Dairy and the payment made to the society based on pooled sample. The payment is so calculated to give the primary milk collective an incremental amount of an average of one rupee per litre of milk. All running costs of the collectives, including salaries and rent, are met from the profits accruing to the collectives from the sales to the dairy and local sales. The break- even point for a collective is an average of 150 litres per day.

Status till date

While BEDROC was supported to set up 10 primary Milk Collectives by the end of the project period, Jan. 2012, only 8 have been set up till date as social mobilization for setting up more collection had to wait till the milk processing plant was set up. This took about a year pushing our time frame to later than expected.  Now, with the milk balancing mechanisms in place, setting up of new societies have been taken up in the areas identified by the project. The last two collectives are slated to be set up by mid- December 2011.

Monthly milk collection details

Of the total milk collected at the collectives, about 2500 litres is sold per day by the collectives themselves in their own locality. The remaining quantity, totaling about 92,000 litres till date has been procured by NAMPCO. Nampco has paid out Rs. 19.87 lakhs to the primary milk collectives till date as milk value payment.

Nampco has marketed milk, ghee and peda under the brand name of Annai, meaning Mother in Tamil and its total turnover in the last year and a half has been to the tune of Rs. 20.93 lakhs.

Governance Mechanism for NAMPCO
At the village level, all primary milk producers are eligible to be members of the collective and form the General Body. A 9-11 member Board of Directors is elected from among these GB members. A five member Executive Committee is (s)elected from among the Board of Directors.

The Executive Committee members of the various village level primary milk Collectives represent their Collective at the Federation Level and form the General Body of the Federation. A 9-11 member Board of Directors for the Federation is elected from among these representatives, ensuring only one member per collective. A five member Executive Committee is (s)elected from among the Board  of Directors.  This ensures that the organization is truly “of the producers, by the producers and for the producers”. While BEDROC does have representation on this Board, they are only present as “Expert Directors” and do not have voting rights.