Covid-19 impact: Boarding schools turn milk vendors in Jharkhand

Jharkhand’s some of the big boarding schools have turned into milk vendors due to peculiar challenges posed by covid-19 outbreak. These institutions, which have been shut down due to the pandemic are facing acute fund crunch due to their fixed monthly expenses, such as the cost of raising cows and horses, kept for milk supply and horse ride lessons to students.

Ranchi’s oldest boarding school, Vikas Vidyalaya, lost seven of its 120 cows due to unavailability of good quality fodder during the initial days of the lockdown.

Inaugurated by the first President of India, Rajendra Prasad, in 1952, the school is spread over a sprawling campus of 175 acres and houses 300 students and close to 130 school staff including teachers.

The institution has been rearing cows since its beginning about seven decades ago.

“Sudden lockdown brought serious problems for us. We have 120 cows which yield over 350 litres of milk daily for consumption by students and school staff. After the lockdown, we faced a serious problem of consuming the milk. Also, the cost of keeping such a large number of cows is enormous,” said school principal PS Kalra.

He added, “For initial three months, we used to make vedic bilona Ghee from these milk assuming that we could serve ghee to our students after reopening. It takes nearly 45-50 litres of milk to prepare one kg of ghee through this method. We sell it at the cost price of Rs 1700 per kg.”

“But, in July, some of the school alumni persuaded us to start supplying milk in Ranchi as they themselves were ready to purchase it. It all started from July 10 and now we are supplying milk in bottles to about 70 households in Ranchi. “The milk being supplied to almost 70 customers shall continue even after school reopens as it is surplus of our requirements.With this, we are able to curtail our losses to some extent,” Kalra said.