Integrated Dairy Development Project (IDDP), Meghalaya

What is the Integrated Dairy Development Project in Meghalaya?

The Integrated Dairy Development Project, universally shortened to IDDP, is a dairy development programme designed for non-Operation Flood, hilly and backward areas; regions that the big cooperative dairy movement of the Operation Flood decades never reached. In Meghalaya it is implemented by the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department, Government of Meghalaya, whose Dairy Development wing is headed by a separate Director.

The department describes its dairy activity as being aimed at the "supply of wholesome milk to consumers", with milk sourced from dairy cooperative societies and farmers, processed at dairy plants, and then distributed. IDDP is the mechanism that builds the first part of that chain, the societies and the collection system in districts where they did not previously exist.

According to the department, IDDP projects are functioning in East Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi, and are under implementation at Jowai and Tura.

What infrastructure does the project work through?

The chilling centres matter as much as the plants. Milk from a hill village cannot reach Shillong or Tura fresh over a long road, so a chilling point within reach of the collection route is what makes a producer's milk saleable at all.

Where the cooperative societies are

The department records 36 dairy cooperative societies currently operating in East Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi districts, with plans to establish 30 more in the Jaintia Hills and 31 in the Garo Hills. That expansion tracks the plant expansion, Jowai's plant serves the Jaintia Hills societies, Tura's serves the Garo Hills, and both are slated to grow from 2,000 to 8,000 litres.

For a milk producer this geography is the single most useful fact in the whole scheme. If your village already sits on a collection route in East Khasi Hills or Ri Bhoi, you can join now. If you are in the Jaintia Hills or Garo Hills, the practical question to put to the district office is when a society is being organised in your area, and whether producers in your village can form one.

Who is eligible for the Integrated Dairy Development Project?

You can join if:

• You are a milk-producing household in Meghalaya keeping one or more milch animals.
• Your village has a dairy cooperative society, or enough producers to form one.
• You can supply milk regularly to the society's collection point. Dairy cooperation runs on daily supply, not occasional surplus.
• You are willing to accept the society's quality testing at collection, which is how the payment rate is fixed.

You cannot join if:

• You keep no milch animal. A household with no milk to supply is not eligible as a producer member, though it may be eligible for departmental cattle development support to acquire an animal first.
• Your village has no society and no collection route, and none is currently being organised. This is a timing problem rather than a permanent bar, ask the district office about the expansion plan for your area.
• You are a milk vendor buying and reselling rather than producing.
• You are outside Meghalaya.

What does a producer actually get?

IDDP does not pay a lump sum to individual farmers, and the department publishes no rupee grant figure for it. What a producer gets is structural:

• An assured buyer. Milk goes to the society, then to a chilling centre or plant, instead of being sold door to door or going to waste.
• A price fixed on quality, not on what a single local buyer offers.
• Payment through the bank on the society's cycle, rather than in irregular cash.
• Access to departmental services, the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department runs artificial insemination programmes, fertility and health camps, and vaccination initiatives that reach society members through the same network.
• Access to improved cattle, since the department operates cattle breeding infrastructure including the Indo-Danish Project at Upper Shillong and the Regional Crossbred Cattle Breeding Farm at Kyrdemkulai.

How to apply and join the Integrated Dairy Development Project

1. Find out whether your village has a dairy cooperative society. Ask at the District Animal Husbandry and Veterinary office, or the Dairy Development office, whether a society and a milk collection route cover your village.
2. Apply for membership of the society if one exists. Submit your identity proof, details of the milch animals you keep and their approximate daily yield, and your bank account details.
3. If no society exists, gather the producers. Approach the district office with a list of milk-producing households in the village and ask for a society to be organised, since organising societies is exactly what IDDP does in a new area.
4. Complete the society's enrolment formalities, including the resolution admitting you as a member, and record your animals in the society register.
5. Start supplying at the collection point on the society's schedule and keep your supply slips. Milk is tested at collection and the rate follows quality.
6. Register with the veterinary dispensary for artificial insemination, vaccination and health camps so that your animals stay productive.

How to track your milk payment

1. Keep the daily supply slip the society issues at collection.
2. Check your entry in the society's register against your slips at the end of the payment cycle.
3. Confirm the bank credit on the society's payment date.
4. Raise any discrepancy with the society secretary first, then with the district Dairy Development officer if it is not settled.

Common problems and what to do

• No collection route in the village. The real fix is a society, not an individual application. Approach the district office collectively.
• Irregular supply. A producer who supplies only in flush season is a weak member of a cooperative that must deliver daily volume to a plant.
• Milk rejected on quality. Test failures usually trace to unclean vessels, delay between milking and collection, or an animal in early treatment. Ask the society for the specific test that failed.
• Low yield from local stock. Take up artificial insemination through the departmental network rather than expecting the project to fix it.
• Plant capacity constraint in the Jaintia and Garo Hills, which the planned expansion from 2,000 to 8,000 litres at Jowai and Tura is meant to address.

Related route for cooperatives

The department also publicises the Dairy Sahakar scheme of the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), under which eligible cooperatives can get credit-linked assistance for infrastructure creation, margin money and working capital, covering bovine development, processing, quality assurance, value addition, marketing, transport, storage, veterinary healthcare, renewable energy and dairy education. NCDC states there is no minimum or maximum limit on assistance to projects by eligible cooperatives, and it may be combined with subsidies or interest subvention from other sources. Notifications for the region come through NCDC's regional office at Guwahati.

A dairy cooperative society that has grown past what the department can fund directly should look at Dairy Sahakar for its next stage of investment.

Grievance and help

• Secretary of your dairy cooperative society for collection, testing and payment questions.
• District Animal Husbandry and Veterinary officer and the Dairy Development officer for society formation and route extension.
• Directorate of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary, Government of Meghalaya, Lumdiengjri, Shillong - 793 002, East Khasi Hills district, where the Director of Dairy Development also sits.
• stateportal-meg[at]gov[dot]in for queries about departmental scheme entries on meghalaya.gov.in.

Membership of a dairy cooperative society carries the society's own subscription, but no government fee is payable to join IDDP, and no agent is authorised to charge for enrolment.