Jethabhai Patel is new GCMMF chairman, targets `50,000 crore revenue by 2020

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) on Wednesday elected Jethabhai Patel, chairman of Sabarkantha District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd, as the federation’s new chairman for a term of two and half years.

GCMMF is India’s largest food products marketing organization with annual sales of ₹ 21,000 crore. It markets a wide range of milk and milk products under the brand names Amul and Sagar.

The new chairman said he has set a target to achieve milk handling and marketing capability for 300,000 litres per day by 2020 and turnover of ₹ 50,000 crore.

At present, members of GCMMF procure an average of 160,000 litres of milk every day from 3.6 million milk producers in 18,000 villages of the state.

The post for chairman at GCMMF has been mired in controversy in the last two years.

In October 2013, as many as 14 directors of GCMMF in a letter requested a board meeting to discuss a no-confidence motion against the then chairman Vipul Chaudhary. They alleged that Chaudhary had committed financial irregularities and issued a notice for the meeting. Chaudhary moved the Gujarat high court claiming the board did not have the power to pass a no-confidence motion against him.

The high court ruled in favour of the federation and gave the go-ahead for the meeting, which unanimously passed the resolution of no-confidence against Chaudhary and removed him from his post.

In March, Chaudhary approached the Supreme Court challenging the division bench order challenging the high court’s verdict; the apex court dismissed his appeal.

Patel’s nomination was proposed by Parthibhai Bhatol, chairman, Banaskantha milk union, and supported by Ramsinhbhai Bhetaria, chairman, Junagadh milk union. As many as 17 members who are chairmen representing their district milk unions in the state took part in the election. Sabar Union is one of the largest dairy unions of the state with annual sales turnover exceeding ₹ 2900 crore and farmer membership of 3.6 lakh milk producers.

Speaking on the occasion, Jethabhai Patel said the global dairy industry has been witnessing a surge in production coupled with decline in demand in large countries like China resulting in a sluggish market conditions.

“Milk producers in countries like New Zealand are getting 60% less price for milk as compared to the previous year. However, farmers of Gujarat are getting about 5-8% more price than last year. This has been made possible due to GCMMF’s emphasis on marketing of branded, value-added dairy products without relying on commodity markets,” he said.

He mentioned India has become the largest milk producing country in the world due to the replication of Amul model across the country by the National Dairy Development Board. “GCMMF will continue to work in close coordination with other state federations across the country so as to strengthen the cooperative movement and also support milk producers of other states if such a need arises,” he said in a statement.