Milk Fortification Project

• 10 Jun 2019

The Milk Fortification Project of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is intended to address vitamin deficiency in consumers. It has seen significant progress in the past two years.

• About 25 milk federations, producer companies or milk unions across 20 States in the country are fortifying about 55 lakh litres of milk per day.
• The fortification is being carried out as per Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) developed by NDDB and FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India).
• As of now, about one million tonnes of milk have been fortified.

About the Project

• The Milk Fortification Project, was launched by the NDDB in collaboration with World Bank and Tata Trusts, as a pilot project on 5^th September, 2017.
• The project aims to process about two million tonnes of fortified milk, reaching around 30 million consumers.
• The duration of the project is 23 months. It is financed by the South Asia Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (SAFANSI), administered by the World Bank.
  
  • SAFANSI seeks to address chronic malnutrition by fostering cross cutting actions to achieve measurable improvements in food and nutrition security in the countries of the South Asia region.
• The NDDB provides consultancy services to the World Bank for implementation of the project. It also provides technical and financial support to milk federations, producer companies and unions for project implementation, including development of SOPs for milk fortification and testing; quality assurance and quality control; trials, training,capacity building and for developing promotional materials.

Micronutrient malnutrition

• It refers to diseases caused by a dietary deficiency of vitamins or minerals.
• Vitamin A deficiency, Iron deficiency anaemia and Iodine deficiency disorders are the most common forms of Micronutrient malnutrition.
• Poverty, lack of access to a variety of foods, lack of knowledge of optimal dietary practices and high incidence of infectious diseases are some of the factors which lead to Micronutrient malnutrition.
• Micronutrient malnutrition leads to high social and public costs, reduced work capacity in populations due to high rates of illness and disability, and tragic loss of human potential.
• Food Fortification or Food Enrichment is one of the solutions to overcome Micronutrient malnutrition. Fortification is the addition of key vitamins and minerals such as iron, iodine, zinc, Vitamin A & D to staple foods such as rice, milk and salt to improve their nutritional content.
  
  • India is the world’s largest milk producing country with its per capita milk availability increased to 375 g per day (2017-18). Milk, with its high volume of production, widespread distribution network, affordability and all-around acceptability in the daily food habit has emerged as the best vehicle for fortification.

Micronutrient Malnutrition in India

• India bears the burden of more than a quarter of the world’s vitamin A deficient preschool children and more than 13 million susceptible infants to iodine deficiency.
• According to National Family Health Survey-4 data, among children under five years in India, 38.4 % are stunted, 21 % are wasted and 35.7 % are underweight.

The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB)

• The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was founded in 1965 to replace exploitation with empowerment, tradition with modernity, stagnation with growth, transforming dairying into an instrument for the development of India's rural people.
• The National Dairy Development Board, initially registered as a society under the Societies Act 1860, was merged with the erstwhile Indian Dairy Corporation, a company formed and registered under the Companies Act 1956, by the NDDB Act 1987, with effect from 12 October, 1987. The new body corporate was also declared an institution of national importance by the Act.
• Since its inception, the Dairy Board has planned and spearheaded India's dairy programmes by placing dairy development in the hands of milk producers and the professionals they employ to manage their cooperatives.