Published Paper Details:

The Indian dairy industry is contributing significantly to the country's economy, besides improving the health standard by increasing the nutritional value of the food. India occupies first position in the world having a total bovine population of 288 million compared to the world's total bovine population of 1420 million. As per 1992 livestock census, the country has about 62.90 million breedable cows and 42.46 million breedable buffaloes. There has been a major improvement in milk production which increased from 17 million tonnes in 1951 to 100 million tonnes in 2006. Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Bihar contributed to the extent of 85% of the total milk production in the country. Today, India is number one producer of milk in the world. The present per capita availability of milk is 212 gm as against the ICMR recommendation of 250 gm. Having made a significant stride in production and processing, our country is topping the globe as the highest milk producer. Now it is the time to upgrade the quality of milk in similar way to provide hygienically safe milk and milk products to the consumers. The sole criterion for determining quality should no longer be FAT/SNF but bacteriological quality of the milk, which is possible only by proper handling of milk from the udder of the animal to the super market shelf. Since the ambient temperature in our country is as high as 45oC, improvement of raw milk quality is possible only by careful milking conditions and its prompt cooling to 4oC or below. The best alternative to the present collection system of milk is cooling of milk immediately after milking by Bulk Cooling Tanks. The usage of such tanks has become popular in the recent past because it not only helps in increasing the shelf-life of milk but also provides systematic and simple way of the procurement of milk. It also ensures procurement of more milk by covering untapped farther areas for milk collection.