As Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to push for ramping up exports and limiting imports under the Make in India or Atma Nirbhar Bharat scheme, Amul has said that India can become a major dairy products exporter to neighbouring countries. “More or less in all food categories, India is self reliant…In milk, we are not only self reliant, we are bringing dairy to the world also… all southeast countries, middle east countries, Sri Lanka, Pakistan are milk-deficit,” Amul MD RS Sodhi told ET Now in an interview. While India currently imports milk powder from various nations such as France, Denmark, Australia and Canada, it also exports dairy and related products to Bhutan, Afghanistan, and UAE.

Various government initiatives will also aid the sector’s growth in the coming five to ten years. The government has realised that dairy is one area where India can become a specialist and it has announced various schemes in the past as well to bolster the segment, RS Sodhi said. The government recently announced Rs 15,000 crore to provide a fillip to India’s dairy sector. “Rs 15,000 ‘pashudhan’ program is opening for the first time for everyone. This will also help increase milk production and export and will also generate employment for lakhs of people,” cabinet minister Prakash Javadekar said late in June during a cabinet briefing. Other schemes were also announced during the Budget 2020-21 to aid the sector.

India is the largest dairy producing and dairy consuming country in the world. Since India has been a milk self-reliant nation since the 1970s, the dairy sector has been pushing for protectionism and saving the interest of domestic dairy farmers for a while even before the Prime Minister raised his pitch of ‘vocal for local’. Industry leaders including Amul had also asked the government to not allow milk imports from countries such as New Zealand and France which are also milk surplus nations.