The Bihar State Milk Co-operative Federation Ltd. (COMFED), came into existence in 1983 as the implementing agency of Operation Flood (OF) programme for Dairy Development on Anand pattern of milk co-operatives in Bihar.

Area of Operation

At present there are eight milk unions and two projects affiliated to COMFED covering all districts of Bihar stated below:

Rest four districts are covered by Kosi Dairy Project, Purnea(Purnea,Katihar, Araria and Kishanganj) besides Nalanda Dairy project which is a Central Dairy that handles surplus milk of all milk unions and also manufacturs UHT milk in Tetrapack, Elecster and milk powder in different pack sizes.

In JharkhandState there are three dairies of COMFED located at Jamshedpur covering East Singhbhum, West Sighbhum and Saraikela, at Ranchi covering Ranchi, Gumla, Lohardaga, Hazaribagh, Simdega, Ramgarh, Khunti, Latehar, Palamu, Garhwa,Chatra and at Bokaro covering Bokaro, Dhanbad and Giridih districts and a Cattlefeed Plant is located at Ranchi.

Organisation of Dairy Co-operative Societies and Milk Procurement

There are 23897 village level dairy co-operative societies (DCS) procuring on an average about 17.26 lakh kgs of milk per day during 2019-20 till December, 2019 from the farmer members. Remunerative milk price is paid to the milk producers for the milk poured by them in the DCS. Apart from the amount paid towards cost of milk, milk producer’s are benefited through the bonus earned by the DCS and incentives paid by the Milk Unions. The money flowing to milk producers plays pivotal role in economic upliftment of the rural areas.

Till the end of December, 2019, the membership of the dairy co-operatives has reached 12.18 lakhs in which women were 21 %, backward caste 48.6%, SC/ST members were 9.5% besides members from general categories as well covering the mass of rural based milk producers.

Technical Inputs Program

COMFED’s success is due to its strong technical inputs programme. The technical inputs include supply quality cattlefeed, artificial insemination of milch animals for breed and productivity enhancement, vaccination, deworming, distribution of improved varieties of fodder seed etc. These inputs are provided to the milk producers through the village level dairy cooperatives  with which they are attached.  The key technical inputs are:

Artificial Insemination Program

The total number of Artificial Insemination (AI) Centres has reached 4396 at the end of December’19 with about 16.45 lakh AI’s done to milch animals covering cows & buffaloes.

Animal Health Program

The main activities under Animal Health Program include prophylactic vaccination against Foot and Mouth disease (FMD), HaemorrageSepticemia (HS) and Black Quarter (BQ) and deworming of animals to keep the cattles healthy. State Government is now also doing mass vaccination and therefore Comfed's activities are now limited and during 2019, 14.77 lakh vaccinations were done.

The deworming of milch animals keeps animal healthy and with sustained efforts the milk producers now do it themselves also. During 2019-20, up to December’19, 9.84 lakh dewormings were done through COMFED.

Processing Infrastructure

There are 22 dairy plants, 19inBihar and 3 in Jharkhand with a total handling capacity of 33 lakh litres of milk per day. There arethree Ice-cream plant of 43 KL capacity located at Patna and Bihar Sharif, four powder plants of 122MT per day capacity for production of milk powder located at Biharsharif, Hajipur, Samastipur, Muzaffarpur&Barauni one Tetra pack&Eclester UHT plant for processing and packing of long shelf life milk and three cattlefeed plants of 460 MT per day capacity. The Cattlefeed Plant at Ranchi produces feed for cattle, poultry, goat, pig also.A new cattle feed plant of 300MT capacity in Bhojpur district is on the verge of completion.

Milk Marketing

The daily average milk marketing of polypack milk during 2019-20 till December, 2019 was 14.97 lakh litres per day. The marketing of milk and milk products is being done in more than 190 cities / towns through 20727 retail outlets and whole day milk booths in Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi and nearby states of Bihar, up to Nov’19. Sale of Tetrapack UHT milk was 11.05 lakh litres in North-Eastern states of the country.

Milk Product Marketing

The milk collected from the dairy co-operative societies is used for sale as liquid milk and for conversion to milk products. The milk products of “Sudha” have become a household namespecially in Bihar Jharkhand and country at large. The dairy plants are manufacturing Ghee, Peda, Dahi, Table Butter, Paneer, Gulabjamun, Mattha, Lassi, Rasogulla, Balushahi etc. Tin packs of Gulagjamum,Rasogulla,Balushahi etc. are also available which have long shelf life. Besides manufacturing of fresh dairy products remaining surplus milk is converted into white butter, skim milk powder, and whole milk powder which are mainly consumed by the dairies. The Social Welfare Dept. of Bihar has now started to procure SUDHA milk powder for providing milk to mother & child at Aanganwadi Centres.

Following measures have added flavour to Sudha products:

Continual improvement in the quality of milk. It was achieved as a result of taking up Dairy Plant Management (DPM) and Quality Assurance Programme by all the dairies of Comfed. Most of the dairies of COMFED are accredited with ISO and HACCP certification.

Reaching close to the consumers by expanding the retail network and establishing new whole day milk booths and strengthening the door delivery system.

Creating consumer awareness through educational programmes.

Financial Performance

The increased milk procurement and marketing by all the Milk Unions and Projects has contributed to the growth of the state & GDP year by year. The turnover of COMFED and its milk unions in 2018-19 was about 3706 crore.