Amul launches'Milk Card' in collaboration with SBI

Amul in collaboration with State Bank of India (SBI) launched Amul Milk Card, a prepaid smart Card, at Mother Dairy in Gandhinagar on Monday. The card can be used to purchase products from Amul parlours.

The card was launched by Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, SBI and R S Sodhi, managing director, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets its products under the brand 'Amul'.

This initiative, a statement issued by the Amul said, will ease access to the dairy major's wide range of products available across Amul parlours in Ahmedabad.

The card, aimed at facilitating customers with convenient and hassle-free mode of payment, will be available to customers for free. They can get the top-up on their card at all Amul parlours and customers will get an SMS alert whenever the transaction is made using this card. The minimum recharge amount is Rs 100 while the maximum recharge amount has been fixed at Rs 3000.

Sodhi said that such co-branded milk card is being introduced for the first time in the country.

"Milk and dairy products account for the largest share of expense in food items of households and such convenience in purchase of milk and milk products will benefit all households. Amul milk is the largest brand of milk in the country with daily sales of over 100 lakh litres. So, we intend to provide the benefit of this smart card to a large number of our consumers. It eliminates cash transaction on daily basis and also solves the problem of change and small denomination coins," he said.

Bhattacharya said, "This initiative is a win-win situation for customers, the cooperative and the bank. It will eliminate lot of cash handling hassles."

The service is presently being launched at 10 Amul parlours in city and the Anand-headquartered dairy major plans to expand the service to 100 parlours in the coming three months before expanding it to other Amul parlours across the state.

Sodhi, meanwhile, ruled out any hike in prices of milk for the next three to four months.

GCMMF is India's largest food products marketing sales organisation with annual sales turnover of Rs 18,500 crores. It is a cooperative federation of 35 lakh milk producers affiliated to 17,000 village cooperative societies handling an average of 150 lakh litres of milk every day.