At greater than Rs.11.16 lakh crore, the worth of India’s milk output is increased than that of another agricultural commodity, exceeding the mixed worth of paddy and wheat, in line with the Nationwide Accounts Statistics 2024. Dairy can also be one of many nation’s largest sources of rural livelihood, supporting greater than eight crore folks, most of them small and marginal farmers for whom a number of heads of cattle present a gradual revenue.
In September 2024, the federal government launched White Revolution 2.0. The initiative goals to deliver uncovered panchayats into the cooperative fold, concentrating on a 50 per cent improve in milk procurement by dairy cooperatives over 5 years via the creation of 75,000 new dairy cooperative societies, alongside efforts to widen market entry, generate employment, and empower girls within the sector.
India has been the world’s largest milk producer since 1998 and now accounts for almost 1 / 4 of the worldwide milk output, with manufacturing rising by nearly 18 per cent in 4 years—from about 210 million tonnes in 2020-21 to just about 248 million tonnes in 2024-25.
However these headline figures and the federal government’s enlargement plans don’t current the whole image. In keeping with the federal government’s personal statistics, simply 5 States—Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Maharashtra—collectively produce a little bit over 54 per cent of India’s milk (“Animal Husbandry Statistics” 2025). The japanese and north-eastern States, regardless of having giant populations and sizeable livestock numbers, contribute far much less to the nationwide output. This hole isn’t solely about what number of animals a State has, or how productive they’re—it’s also about what occurs to the milk after it leaves the animal and earlier than it reaches a purchaser.
A comparability of milking animals and milk output makes this clear. Punjab has simply 1.41 per cent of India’s milking animals (in line with the twentiethlivestock census; figures printed in 2025) however produces round 6 per cent of the nation’s milk. Gujarat has 5.32 per cent of the animals however contributes 7.78 per cent of output. Bihar reveals the other sample. It has 7.94 per cent of India’s milking animals however produces solely 5.41 per cent of the milk. Animal productiveness explains a part of this hole, however so does infrastructure: as White Revolution 2.0 goals to deliver extra villages into the cooperative community, progress on that scale will rely as a lot on sturdy infrastructure for refrigeration, storage, and transportation as it can on the variety of cooperatives created.
Race towards time
Contemporary milk leaves the animal at round 33°C and must be cooled to 3-4°C as rapidly as attainable to gradual bacterial progress. This makes electrical energy greater than a working value for a dairy. It’s a part of the chilly chain itself. If energy fails, milk doesn’t await it to return.
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“The most important problem dairy farmers face is the time between milking the animals and reaching the chilling centre. Ideally, milk ought to be chilled inside two to a few hours,” stated Vishal Sukhija, senior programme affiliate on the Sustainability, Fairness and Variety Fund.“If there’s a delay, bacterial progress begins, which pushes down the standard of the milk and, in some instances, may even make it unusable.”In lots of areas, milk takes 4 to 6 hours to succeed in a chilling centre, particularly the place assortment factors are removed from villages.
Simply how a lot this prices India as an entire is difficult to pin down, however a research by NABARD Consultancy Companies gives a uncommon estimate. Throughout 14 areas studied, the common post-harvest milk loss was 0.87 per cent. That common, nevertheless, hid huge variation: losses ranged from 0.53 per cent in Indore of Madhya Pradesh to as excessive as 8.94 per cent in East Medinipur of West Bengal. This implies that nationwide figures can masks extreme losses in poorly served pockets, significantly the place assortment, transport, and chilling infrastructure stay weak.
Aakriti Srivastava, founding father of the “open-access” dairy BahulaNaturals, has witnessed this drawback at first hand in one in all India’s harshest dairying areas. “Rajasthan, particularly the western a part of the State, is extraordinarily arid and sizzling,” she stated. “Earlier, milk spoilage in these areas could possibly be as excessive as 40 per cent, and through summer time, it might attain 70 per cent.”
The diesel lure
A bulk milk cooler, or BMC, is supposed to be the primary line of defence towards spoilage. It cools milk after assortment and holds it at a low temperature till it will probably transfer to a bigger facility. However this technique solely works with a gradual energy provide, and in lots of rural areas, electrical energy stays unreliable, significantly in the course of the monsoon. Diesel mills have turn out to be the usual backup.
A 2026 survey by the Yale Program on Local weather Change Communication discovered that 66 per cent of Indians reported dealing with electrical energy disruptions on a typical day. Twenty-two per cent reported outages of 5 hours or extra, 16 per cent reported three to 4 hours, and 29 per cent reported one to 2 hours. For an extraordinary family, an influence outage could imply little greater than inconvenience. For a dairy, nevertheless, the identical outage can imply hundreds of litres of milk warming, growing the danger of spoilage and leading to important lack of revenue.
Photo voltaic-powered milk chiller at Umarava Dairy Mandali in Chhota Udepur, Gujarat.
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SUCHAK PATEL
The economics of diesel backup are punishing. In keeping with estimates from Inficold (an organization that designs energy-efficient cooling programs), grid electrical energy used for chilling prices about Rs.0.15 to Rs.0.20 for a litre of milk, in contrast with roughly as much as Rs.2 for a litre when diesel is used as an alternative.
Diesel additionally brings uncertainty—its worth and provide usually are not all the time predictable. Floods, transport disruptions, and different emergencies could make gas tough to supply. International occasions can add to that uncertainty. Latest tensions involving Iran, as an example, have proven how geopolitical disruptions can have an effect on vitality markets and gas costs. For dairy farmers and cooperatives, increased value of diesel or its unavailability could make protecting milk chilly tough, growing the danger of spoilage and monetary losses.
In Bihar’s Begusarai district, a farmer, Shailendra Choudhary, stated sourcing diesel turns into particularly arduous throughout floods within the Kosi area, when energy provide can keep disrupted for days at a stretch.“Photo voltaic vitality could be very useful in these situations,”he stated. “Farmers need to scale back their dependence on exterior sources and turn out to be extra self-reliant.” For dairies in weak-grid areas, the true worth of photo voltaic vitality is not only that daylight is free—it removes dependence on a backup system that itself usually fails throughout emergencies.
Nitin Goel, founding father of Inficold, stated dairies now use two fundamental varieties of photo voltaic programs. The primary is a grid-connected photo voltaic system: photo voltaic panels scale back the dairy’s electrical energy invoice, however the dairy stays depending on the grid. When the ability goes out, it nonetheless has to make use of diesel. So, whereas this technique saves cash, it doesn’t clear up the issue of unreliable energy.
The second is a stand-alone photo voltaic chiller, which might work with out the grid. It prices extra to instal, however it will probably scale back dependence on each grid electrical energy and diesel. This makes it extra helpful for dairies in areas the place energy provide is unreliable.
When photo voltaic vitality saves cash however diesel stays
The Sherpura dairy cooperative in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district reveals how the primary mannequin performs out in apply. “Earlier, our electrical energy invoice was round Rs.1 lakh a month. After putting in the photo voltaic system, it has come right down to round Rs.12,000,” stated Dahyaji Hinduji Jat, a farmer and secretary of the cooperative. The financial savings are important, however there’s a catch. “When the grid energy is disconnected, the photo voltaic system doesn’t provide electrical energy. We nonetheless want a diesel generator to maintain the milk cool,” he stated.
Sherpura has over 500 members and collects round 20,000 litres of milk every day. In 2022-23, the cooperative invested Rs.32 lakh of its personal cash with out authorities or dairy union subsidy in a 62-kW photo voltaic system. The funding sharply minimize its electrical energy invoice, however throughout energy cuts, the cooperative nonetheless leans on diesel, spending round Rs.2.5 lakh a 12 months on gas. Sherpura’s expertise reveals that reducing electrical energy prices doesn’t mechanically imply vitality independence.
For a cooperative with a largely steady grid connection that merely needs to scale back month-to-month prices, this mannequin could also be sufficient. However for a set centre the place outages are frequent and spoilage is the true fear, a unique strategy is required.
At Aambaliyawas, close to Thara in north Gujarat, a cooperative secretary, Jagani Jayeshbhai Kumar, noticed what occurred when his cooperative moved away from grid dependence fully. An electrical BMC had value the cooperative almost Rs.1.4 lakh a 12 months in electrical energy, plus round Rs.24,000 on diesel throughout outages. After switching to a solar-powered chiller, with help from a WWF India initiative, each bills disappeared.
“When there was an influence minimize, we needed to run round searching for a diesel generator set on lease. Milk can not wait,” Jayeshbhai stated. “Now I don’t have to fret about electrical energy or diesel.” What makes this technique work is not only the photo voltaic panels, however how the cooling system is designed to maintain milk chilly even when the solar isn’t out and the grid is down.
These programs are extra superior than merely bolting photo voltaic panels onto a daily BMC. They mix photo voltaic panels, a milk cooler, and an ice-based thermal storage unit. Through the day, solar energy runs the compressor whereas further capability is used to freeze water and “retailer” cooling as ice. When recent milk arrives at 30–35°C, the compressor and saved ice work collectively to chill it quick. At evening, or throughout an outage, the saved ice acts like a chilly battery, protecting temperatures steady with none generator.
At Umarava Dairy Mandali in Chhota Udepur, dwelling to about 600 members, outcomes have been related. “After adopting the solarised chiller, milk spoilage has decreased to zero. Earlier, energy cuts have been a significant drawback, significantly in the course of the summer time,” stated Mahendrabhai Rathwa, the cooperative’s head. A traditional chiller took 3 to 4 hours to chill milk and wanted an operator on-site for lengthy stretches. The photo voltaic system has minimize that burden and saves the centre Rs.12,000 to Rs.15,000 a month in mixed energy and gas prices.
For the Sanghamitra Mahila Farmer Producer Firm in Assam, the issue was energy cuts and milk losses. The corporate, run by 1,794 girls from self-help teams, started accumulating milk in 2023. In its first 6 months, 4 main outages led to the lack of about 480 litres of milk, stated CEO Jackson Basumatary. It was spending round Rs.22,000 a month on electrical energy and diesel.
A diesel-powered generator utilized in a dairy.
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SUCHAK PATEL
In February 2024, Sanghamitra put in a 10-kW photo voltaic system with help from the Sauramandala Basis. Its month-to-month vitality prices fell to round Rs.3,000 and diesel use stopped fully. For the corporate, selecting photo voltaic vitality was not nearly saving cash. It offered a extra dependable supply of energy when milk wanted to be chilled.
In Rajasthan’s Thar area, the issue is totally different. Many distant villages round Bikaner, Jaisalmer, and Jodhpur both don’t have any grid connection or face unreliable energy provide. “Many of those distant areas do not need entry to the electrical energy grid. And even the place grid connectivity exists, the electrical energy provide is commonly unreliable,” stated Srivastava, whose organisation has put in eight 500-litre stand-alone photo voltaic chillers, beginning with one photo voltaic chillar in 2020. Milk spoilage, which as soon as reached 40 to 70 per cent, has fallen to under 10 per cent, she stated.
In Assam’s Barak Valley, photo voltaic vitality helps clear up a unique drawback: getting milk from farmers to a set centre rapidly. A cooperative within the Cachar-Silchar space, with about 100 members and 50 energetic suppliers, collects almost 250 litres a day. Earlier, farmers bought milk straight in close by cities, with some utilizing LPG stoves to warmth the milk and prolong its shelf life. A photo voltaic chiller put in with help from SELCO Basis introduced milk assortment nearer to farmers and decreased their dependence on these expensive strategies, stated Mehbub Hasan Laskar, who works SELCO Basis.
Photo voltaic vitality also can assist dairies which have a grid connection however can not simply get extra energy. Some milk chillers require compressors of round 6.5 kW. Connections above 2.5 kW in some southern Indian States could require a business connection, resulting in extra paperwork and delays. Photo voltaic programs with thermal or battery storage can permit dairies so as to add chilling capability with out ready for a bigger grid connection, stated an individual related to the trade.
Photo voltaic economics of chilling
The primary downside of stand-alone photo voltaic chillers is their increased upfront value. However their working prices may be a lot decrease as a result of they scale back or remove electrical energy and diesel use. “In a single case research, a 2,000-litre bulk milk cooler used about 200 litres of diesel a month. After solarisation, it was estimated to avoid wasting round Rs.2.15 lakh a 12 months,” stated Dr Sudhindra, CEO of Promot Improvements.
Going by Inficold’s fundamental calculation of the price of utilizing diesel as an alternative of electrical energy for cooling a litre of milk, for a 1,000-litre-per-day chiller working 300 days a 12 months, the annual cooling value can be about Rs.93,600 if diesel is used for 10 per cent of the time, Rs.1.33 lakh at 20 per cent, and Rs.1.73 lakh at 30 per cent.
A chart exhibiting how the usage of diesel throughout energy cuts pushes up prices in dairy farming.
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SUCHAK PATEL
With stand-alone solar-powered chillers, daylight supplies the vitality after set up. The primary prices are, due to this fact, the preliminary funding and routine upkeep, whereas spending on electrical energy and diesel may be largely prevented.
WWF India has helped arrange greater than 100 solar-powered prompt chillers throughout Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Rajasthan, collectively dealing with round 50,000 litres of milk every day. That’s proof that the know-how works. But, its use stays negligible in contrast with the dimensions of India’s dairy community. Three structural limitations clarify why.
“The primary problem is the excessive capital value. Small milk assortment centres usually merely can not afford solar-powered chilling programs with out exterior monetary help,” stated Vishal Dev, Director, WWF-India.
The second is how monetary help is designed. Goel noticed that dairy programmes have largely backed standard bulk coolers with subsidies, leaving stand-alone photo voltaic programs with thermal storage under-supported, although they clear up the tougher drawback of reliability.
The third barrier is weak reward for high quality. Dr Sudhindra identified that dairy procurement has historically focussed on how a lot milk is delivered, not how properly it’s preserved. If farmers see little further fee for safeguarding milk high quality, there’s restricted incentive to put money into higher cooling.
Solar energy in India’s dairy sector is not only about chilling milk any extra—it’s spreading into almost each stage of the worth chain, beginning even earlier than the milk is collected.
Solar energy can also be getting used for milking. Milking must be carried out at fastened occasions, often within the morning and night, so energy cuts can disrupt the method.“Milking must be carried out at fastened occasions each morning and night, and uninterrupted energy is important,”stated Akshtha J., venture supervisor at SELCO Basis. Photo voltaic-powered milking machines may also help farmers keep away from diesel or petrol mills and scale back their dependence on an unreliable grid.
A solar-powered water heater.
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SUCHAK PATEL
Solar energy can also be getting used to warmth water for cleansing. Milk chillers have to be washed on daily basis with sizzling water, often at 70-80°C, to take away milk fats and protein left behind within the tank. In components of northern Gujarat, dairies are utilizing photo voltaic water heaters for this activity, lowering the electrical energy or gas wanted for cleansing.
Solarisation can also be transferring past milk chilling into dairy processing. The Nationwide Dairy Growth Board (NDDB) has arrange a solar-powered milk processing plant in Kargil to provide recent milk to Military items in Siachen, Nubra Valley, and Leh. In Kerala, the board has partnered with the Ernakulam Regional Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union for a bigger milk-processing plant in Kochi, powered by a 2 MW photo voltaic plant.
NDDB: A pacesetter missing in lead
NDDB has been central to India’s dairy story since Operation Flood started in 1970. Greater than 5 many years later, it has a key position within the authorities’s White Revolution 2.0.
NDDB claims on its web site that it retains observe of technological advances and incorporates new applied sciences into dairy-plant design. The web site additionally lists a number of initiatives involving photo voltaic vitality. However an RTI response obtained means that the tempo of deployment has been gradual.
An RTI response from NDDB, which has put in just one solar-powered milk chiller, in 2018. It didn’t present any details about the grid-independent bulk milk cooler.
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SUCHAK PATEL
The board has put in just one solar-powered milk chiller, in 2018. It has additionally deployed 19 concentrated photo voltaic thermal (CST) programs at dairy vegetation throughout seven States, with a mixed capability of about 223 lakh kcal a day. Nevertheless, an RTI response reveals that the final such set up was in 2023, with no new programs reported since then.
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NDDB additionally mentions that it’s working with the Ministry of New and Renewable Power on a framework for grid-independent bulk milk coolers. However its RTI response didn’t present particulars on the progress of the framework. As White Revolution 2.0 expands the cooperative dairy community, the problem isn’t merely creating extra cooperatives however guaranteeing that they’ve dependable vitality infrastructure.
Solar energy is steadily discovering its approach into India’s dairy sector—cooling milk, heating water, even powering processing vegetation. The know-how has confirmed itself in villages from Rajasthan to Assam. What stays is scaling it up, via higher financing, stronger coverage help, and cooperation between authorities our bodies and native dairies. As India’s dairy community grows underneath White Revolution 2.0, solar energy might properly turn out to be an even bigger a part of that story.
Suchak Patel is an unbiased author and researcher. This story is produced with help from the Internews Earth Journalism Community Fellowship.