The morning alarm buzzes to wake you up. Stop it or snooze it, you eventually wake up to take care of your day’s business. That’s how life usually starts in the city. If there is one thing everyone expects out of staying in a city, it is “convenience”. No wonder online shopping and instant cab bookings are such popular choices among the city dwellers. Our food habits too, are conveniently refined depending on the availability of products in the market.

Today, whatever food products we talk about, we find a consistent supply of almost all our requirements in the market. One such vital requirement in our daily consumption is milk. But living in a city and having a milkman deliver fresh milk every day at our doorstep is a distant dream for many. Even if one manages to avail this privilege in some localities, there is always the fear of quality being tampered with and even if not, consistency is a real struggle!

Fresh Milk at your local store

What if fresh milk is made available at your local store for you to buy when you need it? And that too twice a day! That is what Purabi Dairy does - addresses the issues with quality and maintain a steady supply of quality milk in the market, in the form of pasteurized milk in convenient poly packs ready for consumption. In Guwahati and many other towns of Assam, Purabi, since its inception, has become a household name. It is a name that, today, inspires trust and signifies consistency in quality.

Fresh milk is always the first priority among milk consumers. But ever wondered how Purabi has managed to deliver fresh milk every day consistently for years? It’s no surprise that the credit goes to the indigenous dairy farmers of Assam.

Source of Fresh Milk Every day!

What started off as a little income-on-the-side for marginal farmers who owned milch cows, went on to become the prime income source for many. Village life in Assam centers on agriculture. People in the villages are either marginal farmers who grow and harvest crops or contribute to the various cottage industries with goods. But with the advent of West Assam Milk Producers' Co-operative Union Ltd. (WAMUL), dairy farming has grown in the recent years and has contributed towards a steady income for most of the farmers.

Earlier, a lot of rural households were able to collect surplus milk from their domestic cows. However, finding a proper market and fetching a fair price for the milk posed a hurdle, aggravated by exploitative intervening middlemen. WAMUL helped eliminate the problem of middlemen, and went on to establish a steady market for fresh packaged milk, starting off with Guwahati city. The milk packets have been distributed in the market under the brand name Purabi and ever since, it has earned the trust and loyalty of its consumer base.

Empowering – through Dairy Farming

Purabi’s operations have led to the empowerment of the dairy farmers, who started fetching fair prices for the amount of milk supplied. Since milking of cows (and milk collection by Purabi) is done twice a day, farmers found it rather convenient to generate income through dairy farming. Today, as you walk through one of these villages where dairy co-operative societies have been set up by WAMUL for procuring milk, you will find dairy farmers in groups heading towards their nearest milk collection center to supply their share of milk for the day. Look deeper, and you will see that most of their households are financially stable.

Dairy Farming in Assam – The Future Picture

It is true that dairy farming in Assam is still not considered significant at the national level due to its low milk production compared to other states in India. However, production levels are gradually rising as WAMUL continues to expand into further rural areas – in Assam as well as neighboring states. More farmers are encouraged to adopt dairy farming, not just for the income but also for the support: quality cattle feeds supplied by WAMUL along with veterinary assistance where needed.

As Purabi Dairy charts its course, it is going ahead with creating a brighter future for Assam’s dairy farmers. A couple of years down the line, and it will be a rosy picture as Purabi Dairy will continue to empower the lives of dairy farmers in the region and maintain a steady supply of milk products in the market to facilitate the consumption pattern of town folks!