Lucknow, May 16(UNI) HCL Samuday, an ambitious project of HCL Foundation working towards

creating a scalable and replicable development model for rural India, on Thursday announced its

partnership with Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ to ensure income augmentation of dairy farmers in Uttar Pradesh.

The dairy intervention implemented by Samuday over the last two years, as part of its efforts to improve rural livelihood opportunities will be supported and taken forward by Banas Dairy, further expanding the organization’s reach in Uttar Pradesh.



HCL Samuday is currently working in three blocks of Hardoi district – Kachhauna, Behender and

Kothawan – to develop these areas on six parameters which include agriculture, education, health,

infrastructure, livelihood, and WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene).

Samuday has been working in 175 villages to improve the quality of milk, increase milk production, ensure proper quality assessment through automatic milk collection units at village level and establishing reliable transportation channels to milk processing units. Besides this, the intervention has worked towards improving animal management practices and ensuring availability of preventive healthcare services for cattle and livestock.

This initiative has directly helped 9025 farmers to generate a total revenue of Rs. 26.71 Crore between February 2017 and March 2019.

The partnership between HCL Samuday and Banas Dairy is initially for a period of three years

(commencing in May 2019) and will be subject to agreement between two organizations for further

extension.



Speaking on the occasion, Navpreet Kaur, Director, HCL Samuday said, “Uttar Pradesh is the largest producer of milk in country, contributing 17 per cent to India’s total milk production. However, the dairy sector remains largely unstructured where small and marginal farmers, who produce minor quantities of surplus milk have no proper channels to sell that milk at fair market prices. Also, quality of milk often gets compromised with rampant adulteration.”

Kamrajbhai R Chaudhary, Managing Director, Banas Dairy said, “We were very keen to expand our operations in UP and the model Samuday has implemented is praiseworthy. We are happy to partner with HCL Samuday. Banas Dairy is against exploitation and protects the interest of farmers by ensuring that farmers receive better remuneration. UP is a Buffalo dominant belt and private players pay less price to farmers by applying various pricing policies."

UNI MB SDR 1555