Hyderabad: Telangana government on Saturday, June 20, announced that the state-owned Vijaya Dairy will provide milk to 27 lakh children studying in government schools and anganwadi centres.

In a review meeting held at the Secretariat, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Animal Husbandry Minister Vakiti Srihari discussed milk consumption in the state, collection, and the bills to be paid to farmers.

The Deputy CM directed the officials to prepare precise figures on total milk production by going to the field and identifying the actual number of milk-giving cattle across the state.

He said that bills related to milk supplied to schools should be directly transferred by the welfare departments to the respective departments to ensure no pending dues for farmers.

Stating that people in rural areas depend heavily on the dairy industry, he ordered that timely payments be made to dairy farmers to strengthen their livelihoods.