Tendersinfo keep you informed about the latest events in the national and international Procurement Industry. Procurement News provides in-depth coverage of the procurement industry, including contract awards, contract additions, new contract wins, mergers and acquisitions. Tendersinfo through its tender news section provides an update on all domestic and global tendering opportunities, invitation to bid & trade leads.

Publish Date : 24-Jan-2017

Indias leading listed dairy firm Kwality Ltd has announced in a BSE filing that the company has accomplished the signing of an agreement recently with the PSU lender Bank of Baroda to extend loans of Rs 4,000 crore to the 1 lakh milk suppliers of the company.

Kwality added, it has signed an MoU with Bank of Baroda to disburse Rs 4,000 crore of loan to its one lakh farmers in initial phase out of its established network".

The dairy firms farmer network of almost 3.25 lakh covers around 4,500 villages in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, which are amongst the top milk producing States of the country.

The company, on the other hand, will also address the rest milk farmers in its network in the following phases over a period of time.

Kwality has stressed that farmers will get funds at preferential rates to be used chiefly for the procurement of milching animals, smartphones and two wheelers.

The dairy brand has also emphasized that the funding scheme is intended for delivering financial support to enhance the social and economic lifestyles of the farming community and steer them towards digitization.

On the development, Kwalitys President and Head Business Transformation Nawal Sharma commented, "This is a win-win situation for all the three stakeholders which are farmers, bank and company. This will help in increasing our direct sourcing of milk from farmers and faster rolling out of high-margin value added products thereby improving the profitability."

According to the official, Bank of Baroda will have a convenient access to a wide customer base for lending to the priority sector and will also obtain operational support from the company to identify farmers and manage the payment method.

Nawal further said, "Farmers will get financial assistance at attractive terms with which they can create additional infrastructure leading to higher income. This will also promote digitisation among farmers.

He has also disclosed that farmers will have access to loans worth as much as Rs 4 lakh at an interest rate, which will not be even 9%.

He added, "It would allow us to develop a robust engine to increase our procurement directly from farmers who currently contribute 22 per cent of our total milk handling capacity of 3.4 mn litres/day, pinpointing that the company is targeting to increase direct procurement to over 50 per cent over the next 3-4 years.

Kwality has strategy to introduce around a dozen types of high margin value-added products like flavoured milk, paneer, as well as cheese, UHT, cream in tetra packs, table-butter, yoghurts, etc. over next 12 to 18-month period in the market.

Go to previous page