CONSTRAINTS PERCEIVED BY THE UNION OFFICIALS OF URMUL, BIKANER

The Present investigation was carried out in ‘URMUL’ milk union, Bikaner to determine the constraints perceived by the personnel engaged in processing of milk at union level. For this purpose, 40 personnels were selected randomly from the processing (Dairy) division of URMUL. The findings indicated that the less volume of milk procured for processing in comparison to installed capacity of the plant, quality of milk reaching the plant specially with respect to acidity suspended foreign material, lack of consumer’s acceptability of processed milk and non-availability of electric power continuously were perceived as most important constraints in processing of milk by union officials in the study area. * Lecturer(Agril. Extn.) S.K. College G.V. Sangaria, Distt. Hanumangarh(Rajasthan). ** Professor and Director, Directorate of Extension Education, RAU, Bikaner. INTRODUCTION The Dairy Cooperatives in India are the replication of the Anand type dairy cooperatives. The main thrust of the milk cooperatives is to provide employment and generate more income for betterment of socio-economic condition of weaker sections. The programme is also aimed at supplying hygenic milk to the urban consumers in all the specific milkshed areas throughout the country, where milk co-operatives have been established. The Uttari Rajasthan Sahakari Dugdh Utpadak Sangh Ltd. (URMUL) was established in 1972 under the scheme of “OPERATION FLOOD”. The headquarter of URMUL is situated at Bikaner. The basic aims of URMUL are to provide market facilities for fluid milk and supply of inputs to milk producers who are members of DCS’s at village level, so as to augment milk production. Moreover, sound milk procurement by millions of small milk producers and supply of processed milk to urban consumers were important targets of establishment of these societies. The milk producers supply their milk to Dairy Co-operative Societies at village level. All the DCS’s are linked with district milk unions at district level. The main function of the district union is procurement and processing of milk and the supply of the processed milk to urban Consumers in different parts of the country. The URMUL is one of the largest unions of the northern India on the basis of procurement capacity. But the available reports of URMUL indicate that the union is suffering huge losses against the installed capacity. The union officials engaged in processing unit are facing a large number of problems in processing of milk. Keeping this view in mind, the present study has been undertaken with the following specific objectives:1. To determine the constraints as perceived by the union officials in processing of milk at union level. 2. To find out association of the various factors with the constraints as perceived by the union officials. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The present investigation was conducted in selected union i.e. URMUL Bikaner, due to the reasons that it is one of the largest and oldest union of Rajasthan. There are two divisions of URMUL, one of the procurement and inputs (P&I) and another is Dairy i.e. processing division. There were 83 personnels attached to the work of milk processing. Out of these about 50 percent i.e. 40 personnels were selected randomly for the present study from processing division of URMUL. For measurement of the constraints perceived by the personnels, the interview schedule was developed by the investigator. Data were collected through Raj. J. Extn. Edu. 17 & 18 : 44-47, 2009 & 2010 Constraints Perceived by the Union Officials of URMUL, Bikaner 45 personal interview technique. The data so collected were classified, tabulated and analysed in the light of the objectives. Inferences were drawn after subjecting the data to the statistical analysis. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The data presented in the Table 1 reveal that the constraint of less volume of milk procured for processing in comparison to installed capacity of the plant which was perceived on the top priority by the union officials in processing of milk. It obtained rank I with weighted average 2.60. Similar findings have been reported by Chahal and Singh(1993) and Chauhan et al. (1995), they reported that milk procurement from the identified milk chilling centres was quite low and therefore, the plant was not optimally used. This may be either due to non competitive prices offered by the union as compared to private venders or due to low average milk yields of the milk animals. Table 1. Constraints perceived by union officials in processing of milk (n=40) S. No. Constraints Weighted average Rank 1. Less volume of milk procured for processing in comparison to installed capacity of plant 2.60 I 2. Quality of milk reaching to the plant especially with respect to acidity, suspended foreign material 2.35 II 3. Lack of consumer's acceptability of processed milk 2.20 III 4. Non availability of electricity power continuously 2.07 IV 5. Difficulties in timely repair and maintenance of plants 1.95 V 6. Lack of coordination between management and others 1.80 VI 7. Lack of modern processing and packing equipments 1.75 VII 8. Lack of approved standard products used in milk processing 1.67 VIII 9. Lack of incentives to efficient workers 1.62 IX 10. Lack of departmental actions on defaulters 1.60 X 11. Imposition of unjustifiable laws by the union officials 1.52 XI 12. Lack of sanitation at plant 1.50 XII 13. Lack of fully operative laboratory for testing milk 1.47 XIII 14. Lack of training of plant operators 1.45 XIV 15. Lack of transportation facilities 1.42 XV 16. Difficulties faced in procurement of packing material 1.40 XVI 17. Difficulties faced in procurement of raw material such as separated milk powder, butter oil etc. for making reconstituted milk 1.40 XVI 18. Non-availability of skilled labour 1.32 XVII 19. Shortage of water supply 1.30 XVIII 20. Wide spread pilferage of products 1.27 XIX 46 Raj. J. Extn. Edu. : 17-18, 2009 & 2010 The quality of the milk reaching to the plant specially with respect to acidity, suspended foreign material obtained rank II with weighted average 2.35 by the union officials. This may be either due to lack of awareness of milk producers about clean milk production or due to lack of training programmes for milk producers regarding clean milk production. Next in order to importance of the constraints i.e. lack of consumers acceptability of processed milk obtained rank III with weighted average 2.20 followed by non-availability of electricity power continuously and difficulties in timely repair and maintenance of the plants. The reasons for these results are reported by the respondents as slight difference in the taste of pasteurised milk in comparison to boiled milk, location of chilling centres in rural areas where the regular supply of power is not available and old and out dated plants which require frequent repairing. Further, data in Table 1 indicate that constraints which were given from more important to less important rank by the majority of the union officials were lack of coordination between management and others, lack of modern processing and packing equipments, lack of approved standard products, lack of incentives to efficient workers and lack of departmental actions on defaults. The weighted average of these constraints vary from 1.80 to 1.60. The data presented in the table also reveal that the constraints such as difficulties faced in procurement of packing materials, difficulties faced in procurement of raw material such as separated milk powder, butter oil etc. for making reconstituted milk, non availability of skilled labour, shortage of water supply and wide spread pilferage of products Table 2. Association of the various factors with the constraints as perceived by the union officials in processing of milk (n=40) S. No. Factors (Independent variables) Correlation coefficient (r value) 1. Age 0.2688 2. Education -0.2740 3. Family background -0.0643 4. Parents occupation 0.0835 5. In-service Training -0.3317 * 6. Job satisfaction -0.3139 * * Significant at 5 percent level of significance. NS Not-significant etc. could not obtain more importance and weighted average ranges between 1.40 to 1.27 with ranks XVI to XIX respectively. Table 2 indicates the calculated values of correlation coefficient in age, education, family background and parents occupation were less than tabulated value at 1 percent level of significance. It infers that there was no significant association among age, education, family background and parents occupation with constraints perceived by the personnels engaged in milk processing. It means that these factors had no effect on constraints. The table further shows that in-service training and job satisfaction were negatively and significantly associated with constraints as perceived by them at 5 per cent level of probability. The negative association indicates that if in-service training and job satisfaction of personnels increased the constraints would decrease. CONCLUSIONS It can be concluded that the less volume of milk procured for processing in comparison to installed capacity of the plant, the quality of milk reaching the plant specially with respect to acidity suspended foreign material, lack of consumer’s acceptability of processed milk and non-availability of electricity power continuously were perceived as most important constraints in processing of milk by union officials. The results further indicates that the constraints of union personnels were found Constraints Perceived by the Union Officials of URMUL, Bikaner 47 negatively and significantly associated with their Inservice training and job satisfaction.