(Photo taken from GCMMF's office when the rains just started)

Gujarat had never witnessed such fury of the rains. It rained relentlessly for about a week throwing life out of gear completely in central Gujarat, including the Milk Capital of India - Anand. There was knee-deep to neck deep water in most parts of the town. With communication links snapped, no electricity and ironically no drinking water, Anand remained practically cut off for a few days. The citizens of the milk capital of India braved it all. They were united in their misery and lent a helping hand to those who were worse off than them. From Sunday with the rain gods relenting, things started improving slowly. Life is slowly limping back to normal though even today some parts of the town are inundated and still without power. Schools are slowly re-opening, trickle of vegetables are coming to the market and road links have slowly been restored though trains links between Vadodara and Ahmedabad still remains cut off. The people of Anand once again showed their grit and determination to face any odd and emerge triumphant.

As in earlier occasions, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. has once again come to the aid of the victims of the worst ever floods in Gujarat. It will supply 6 lac packs of Amul Milk in 200 ml tetra pack for the flood relief operations. The approximate cost of the milk would come to Rs. 28.00 lacs. The milk will be supplied as a contribution to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.

This follows the discussions Shri B.M. Vyas, Managing Director, GCMMF had with Shri Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Minister of Agriculture & Cooperation, Govt. of Gujarat regarding the need to provide safe milk for distribution in the flood affected areas of Gujarat when the minister visited Anand on Monday.

Marginal drop in Milk Procurement

In spite of the unprecedented floods in Gujarat, milk procurement by the Member Unions of Gujarat had shown only a marginal decline of 7% last week. However, with an improvement in the situation, milk procurement is slowly expected to return to normal.. On an average the milk procurement was about 51 lakh liters per day. Milk procurement in Baroda & Kaira Unions has been affected more than the other Unions. The priority now is to supply milk rather than go in for products whose stocks are available across the country.

The resilience of the farmer members was demonstrated when Members from many Societies who were not able to deliver milk in their Village Society due to floods, came all the way to Amul Dairy in tractors and unloaded the milk themselves.