When the private milk agent dropped procurement rates without warning, forty women in our Mandya village said no. This is the paperwork, the mistakes, and the model that’s now been replicated in six neighbouring villages.
The dairy agent used to arrive at 5:30 in the morning, buy the milk at whatever rate he decided the night before, and leave. In November 2022, he dropped the rate from ₹30 to ₹23 per litre without warning. Not one of us had bargaining power. Together, we had all of it.
A cooperative society under the Karnataka Cooperative Societies Act, 1959 can be formed with a minimum of 10 members. We started with 12, grew to 40, and today procure milk for a KMF-linked collection centre.
The paperwork is honestly not difficult. Bye-laws, list of members, share capital of ₹100 per member, registration fee of ₹1,000. The district Cooperative Society office helped us. It took 42 days.
The hard part is trust. The first six months, we lost members because payouts were delayed. We learned to close accounts on the 1st and 15th of every month, no exceptions. Once payments became predictable, membership doubled.
In three years we have paid out ₹18 lakh to members, purchased a shared chilling unit, and negotiated fodder supply at a group rate. Six neighbouring villages have replicated the model — we now share bye-laws and paperwork on request.