India is the largest producer of milk in the world but paradoxically consumes the least with infants and growing children being the worst deprived, parliament was informed on Friday.
The per capita availability of milk in India is 229 gm per day as against 887.7 gm in Switzerland, 848.03 gm in Sweden, France (777.5) and Germany (741.52).In a written reply, Minister of State for Agriculture Taslimuddin told the Rajya Sabha that India produced over 90.7 million tonnes of milk during 2004-05. The production has been going up over the years with the amount being over 86.1 million tonnes in 2002 and more than over 88 million in 2003.
He said low productivity of animals and large human population are the main reasons for lower per capita availability.
(Source: IANS)
