Sikkim Milk Union team tours West Sikkim to promote quality production

GANGTOK, 11 June: In an effort to stimulate quality milk collection, the management team of Sikkim Milk Union comprising of Managing Director, Joint General Manager, DGM along with field supervisors visited several Village Cooperative Societies in West Sikkim including the ones located at Timberbong, Dodak, Buriakhop, Bada Samdong, Raphang, Sribadam in the last week, informs a press release.
The functionaries of the societies were explained about the importance and need of collection of evening milk in order to ensure that the quality of milk is of acceptable standard. The management team also insisted on utilizing the bulk milk cooler properly to obtain benefits out of the same in enhancing the milk quality, the release mentions.
Issues related to cattle feed distribution and management issues arising out of road blocks occurring due to landslides were also discussed to arrive at location specific solution. The release informs that field functionaries were directed to facilitate movement of milk from societies whenever there is a road block.
Sikkim Milk Union has initiated several measures to improve the quality of milk procured from the cooperative societies. The quality of milk procured in Sikkim suffers due to problem associated with mixing of evening with morning milk particularly during summer. In order to avoid such instances, the union has installed about 30 bulk cooling machines at various locations in South, East and West Sikkim, the release informs.
The Union has also provided deep freezers to more than 40 societies. The evening milk collected by the members have to be brought to the bulk cooling stations in the evening itself, so that milk is preserved with its original quality and flavor. All the bulk cooling stations have been requested to start evening milk collection and chill them in the coolers till it is dispatched to the Union.
As of now, a few coolers are functioning to enable the societies and its members to collect evening milk. It is expected that the remaining bulk coolers will be functional within a few days and start sending fresh and quality milk to the union, the release mentions further adding that the field functionaries of the union are on their toes to get this initiative forward.