Rs 15k to 6L monthly; farmer couple milking money from thriving dairy business

For Komalpreet Kaur, 34, dairy farming was an unfamiliar territory. She had never seen a buffalo being reared, let alone milking or making dairy products, but what began as a modest venture during the Covid pandemic has now grown into a business with monthly sales of more than Rs 6 lakh.

A homemaker, Komalpreet began this journey with her husband, Gurjeet Singh Hundal, 37, who initially worked as a foreman in a small ‘kirpan’ (small sword) manufacturing unit, and then drove a rented battery rickshaw to make ends meet. Today, the couple run a thriving dairy enterprise, with Komalpreet involved at every stage — from milking buffaloes to preparing milk badam, barfi, kheer, buttermilk, paneer, curd, and clarified butter. They have taken their products directly to customers, selling them daily at a makeshift stall in front of a gurdwara in Amritsar.

“Getting pure milk and its products are a luxury today, but we can vouch for our products with full confidence. Anybody can check our products for purity,” Komalpreet says.

The couple, both 10+2, hails from Mahima Pandori village, where they own a little over one acre, but currently lives in Bhinder Colony in Guru Wali village, Amritsar, where they run the dairy.

The dairy has around 17 buffaloes and one cow, with the number of buffaloes having grown at different stages as the business expanded. The cattle include Murrah and Neeli Ravi breeds.

“I earn three times more than what once I used to. As my earnings grew, I bought four battery rickshaws. I kept one for myself and gave one each to my father, uncle and brother-in-law for their livelihood,” Gurjeet says.

The turning point came just before the outbreak of the Covid, when a relative who ran a large dairy encouraged the couple to start on a smaller scale.

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“One of our relatives arranged around eight buffaloes for an initial payment of just Rs 100 per buffalo and with a promise to pay the balance — around Rs 70,000 per buffalo — within three months,” Komalpreet says, adding: “We paid the balance amount within months, and then raised the number of cattle to 30.” The couple now have cattle worth Rs 27 lakh, and no debt.
“We get around 1.5 quintals of milk daily and also take around one quintal from our relatives’ dairy, because there is a huge demand for our products. Our motto is to provide people with pure products,” Gurjeet says.

“Instead of depending on a dairy or middleman to sell our produce, we have developed a customer base. We sit in front of Gurdwara Baba Deep Singh Shaheed in Amritsar twice a day, 7.30 am to 9.30 am and 7 pm to 9 pm, to sell milk and milk products. We sell milk badam in bottles, adding another product to the business.”

“We sell milk for Rs 80 per kg, paneer for Rs 480 per kg, curd for Rs 100 per kg, barfi for Rs 800 per kg, pure ghee for Rs 1,500 per kg and milk badam for Rs 50 for a 300-ml bottle,” Komalpreet says, adding that they work very hard, but the return is satisfying, with around 50 per cent profit.

“We had never imagined that we would go from a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 to monthly sales of over Rs 6 lakh,” the couple say.

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“There is such huge demand for ghee that we are unable to meet it,” says Komalpreet, who has taken a shop on rent in front of the gurdwara and will soon begin selling their products.