India’s first exclusive camel milk dairy is all set to start operations this month in Rajasthan.

The modest stock of 110 litres that the facility plans to conserve initially will also be made available in other states as per demand.
The dairy will rear 32 breeds of the most productive camels and will, besides marketing the milk in pouches and as value-added products such as flavoured milk and ice-cream, will also have a laboratory to study variations in production on account of seasonal changes.
The National Research Centre on Camel will oversee the dairy. “100 camel breeders will be associated with it and it will follow scientific methods of storing milk and making different products from it,” says Professor K Pathak, the centre’s director.
Pathak says the centre had begun studying the therapeutic value of camel milk and found evidence to suggest that it could be helpful in controlling diabetes. “This centre has already developed a camel milk-based cosmetic cream and is now toying with the idea of swapping camel bone for ivory,” he adds.
In the meantime, the Rajasthan Dairy Cooperative Federation is set to announce the introduction of products like cheese and paneer-derived from camel milk in the market.