Guru Angad Dev Veterinary & Animal Sciences University scientist has taken a lead and developed a milk chiller that works even during the power cuts at the time of milking. It would also help in reducing the hassle faced by the small dairy farmers while taking their milk to the collection centers in the evening. The machine was designed and developed by Dr Amandeep Sharma, Assistant Professor, Dairy Engineering, College of Dairy Science and Technology, (CODST) under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) project. Dr. Sharma told that Punjab is one of the leading milk producing state who is adopting commercial dairy farming at rapid pace. But, still small dairy farmers are contributing major share in milk production. The farmers have to take their milk to milk collection centers and visit such centers twice a day. Under the new norms of Food Safety and Standards Act, the milk has to be chilled to 4oC immediately after milking. The existing milk chillers need continuous power supply for milk chilling. The erratic power supply in rural areas is one of the reasons for non-popularization of existing milk chillers. Considering the need to maintain cold chain in milk collection, milk men who often fear of milk spoilage during collection and selling would be benefitted by adopting this technology. He told that the developed prototype is of 40 liters capacity but the machine can be conveniently manufactured for higher capacities. The performance evaluation has shown that the milk can be chilled to 4oC within 2 hours and then the temperature can be maintained for about 12 hours.
Dr Anil Kumar Puniya, Dean, CODST told that technology is farmer friendly, convenient to use and follow the clean milk production concept to maintain the milk quality. He also said that technology is ready to transfer to the industry. Interested manufacturer can contact to acquire the technology. Dr A S Nanda, Vice Chancellor, GADVASU appreciated the efforts put in by the faculty and staff associated in developing the technology and expressed that adoption of this technology would help the small dairy farmers to maintain their milk quality, fetch a better price for their produce and can save their time by visiting the milk collection centers once a day instead of twice as being done presently.
