Commodity Online

Anand, Feb 20: What is ATM? In the land of White Revolution, it is any time milk machines.

Surprised? Come to Gujarat's Anand town, the cradle of India's White Revolution. In a first of its kind, the Amul Dairy recently began trials for milk cards on its newly-installed milk vending machine in Anand.

Now you can keep one more plastic card in your wallet and buy milk at any ATMs installed by the Amul Dairy.

Apart from Gujarat, Amul brand of liquid milk is available in Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Kolkata and Madhya Pradesh among other states.

According to the milk giant, it has already installed one machine at its headquarters in Anand and is witnessing encouraging footfalls.

The ATM is receiving good response from the consumers but the corporate giant will make the machine more user-friendly. Instead of mere cash, now Amul is experimenting with special cards on the lines of debit cards. The card will have to be recharged periodically to use the ATM.

The dairy has plans to install ATMs in major centres soon. Again, Amul is eyeing major cities and spots like railway stations and bus stands where the floating population is huge.

The ATMs would also be placed in remote areas where Amul is yet to have strong distribution network. It may also tie up with organised retailers to get space in their outfits.

According to Amul officials, ATMs would prove beneficial for the dual income households, where husband and wife spend most of their daytime at work and find it difficult to buy milk at odd hours.

The cards may also be used for loyalty programmes since the competition in the major milk markets is heating up.

Largely, the organised dairy players are competing with the unorganised players. But lately, the organised players have started competing with each other and the cards will have much bigger role in days to come.