Grameen Fisheries and Livestock Foundation (GMPF) provided loans to the bank's village group members for purchasing livestock under a project titled Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project.

Collecting from the group members, the GMPF manufactures the pasteurised milk. BioWares Limited, a local marketing company, started marketing the Grameen Dugdha initially in Dhaka's market.

The prices for 250ml, 500ml and one litre packs of Grameen milk have been fixed at Tk 7, Tk 13 and Tk 25 respectively.

"We provide Tk 24,000 loan to each group member for purchasing livestock, building a pucca shed and buying feed," said Muhammad Muzaffar Hussain, general manager of GMPF, at the launching ceremony held at a local hotel.

Hussain said under the project, a total of 3,294 livestock packages were provided till August 2003. "GMPF is expected to extend the loan to a total of 10,482 members to produce 20.87 million litres of milk per day," he said.

Abdullah Mohibuddin, managing director of BioWares Limited, said the daily demand for milk is estimated at 10.5 million-ton while at present the volume of total production and import is only 1.91 million-ton a day.

The GMPF general manager said Bogra, Sirajganj, Dinajpur and Nilphamari areas have so far been brought under the coverage of Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project, sponsored by the Ministry of Finance.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is funding the project while Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and a German credit institution are providing technical assistance to it.

Peter E Albrich, president of Bangladesh-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ehsanul Bari, deputy general manager of GMPF, and Sanaul Mostafa, chairman of BioWares Limited, also spoke at the function.