Can milk drive food processing and packaging in India?

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In a statement made to the Lok Sabha in end-November 2009, KV Thomas the Minister of State for Agriculture said that milk production in the country is planned to be raised to 180 million tonnes by the 2021-22 financial year. This would not mean any great increase from the annual growth rate of 3.9% in the past decade. Nonetheless, the National Dairy Plan of the government drawn up by the National Dairy Development Board has an outlay of Rs. 17,371 crore over the next fifteen years to increase the productivity of this sector. One does expect that similar to the anticipated leap in disposable income, there is an inflection point in the consumption of milk that will in the coming years, lead to a steep increase in it being processed by industry into pasteurised and homogenised milk, and products such as flavoured beverages, butter, ice-cream and cheese.
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