As there was Saying, In Olden times India main Doodh aur Ghee ki Nadiya behti thi.. It’s true in today’s sense also.  Today, India is the largest producer of milk in the world, contributing 23% of global milk. production.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the situation was radically different. India was a milk-deficit nation dependent on imports, and the annual production growth was negative for several years. In 1950-51, per capita milk consumption in the country was only 124 grams per day.  Milk production in 1950-51 stood at merely 17 Million Tonnes (MT). In 1968-69, prior to the launch of Operation Flood, milk production was only 21.2 MT which increased to 30.4 MT by 1979-80 and 51.4 MT by 1989-90. Now it has increased to 210 million tonnes in 2020-21. 

Today, milk production is growing at the rate of two percent in the whole world, whereas in India, its growth rate is more than six percent. The per capita availability of milk in India is much higher than the world average. In three decades (the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s), the daily milk consumption in the country rose from a low of 107 grams per person in 1970 to 427 grams per person in 2020-21 as against the world average of 322 grams per day during 2021.

Source: Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying