We meet a bunch of women in Amdha village of Valsad district in south Gujarat. Most of them are Kokna Patels. A few belong to primitive tribal groups (PTGs), though there is little in their demeanour to warrant that label. A dairy union brings them together. Half of the village’s 240 households are members; 50 are active. Last calendar year they supplied 77,000 litres of milk and earned nearly '15 lakh, or nearly '30,000 per supplier, on average.

That is enough cash to grease life between harvests. Dung-eating earthworms in woven plastic bags produce compost and more loose change. The women were wage labourers until 2004, when they hit upon dairying to escape the grind. Sarika, wife of the dairy union’s secretary, bought a heifer and reared it into a cow. She was one of the initiators.

Sita, who earned nearly '10,000 in February from milk, repaid the loan contracted for a cow within one year. Bhagwati sold one of two animals to pay for a tube well. Ranjan would like to add to her stable of two, if there was enough water. Much of the heavy rain that Valsad gets runs into the sea.

The dairy programme under the Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojna, the Gujarat government’s tribal welfare initiative, strives to pull tribal farmers from poverty by providing them cattle and support – like training, collection centres, bulk chillers, milk testers, artificial inseminators, stainless steel containers and somatic cell counters (to check for infection). This is a seven-year project to convert 78,000 tribal families to dairying at a cost of '700 crore to be jointly shared by the state government, partner dairies and the tribals themselves. Four animals make the business viable. To cap subsidies, the government provides a household with two each at discounted rates and cheap bank loans. It expects breeding to bring in the rest.

Elaborate measures have been instituted to ease the tribals’ transition to dairying. Cattle suppliers have to bid to qualify. Camps put sellers and buyers together on specific days. Procurement committees assisted by vets are supposed to ensure that animals sold can pay for themselves and dribbling udders do not get passed off as dripping ones. Buyers can milk cattle at the camps at various intervals to assure themselves. Yet, tribals get shortchanged.

An early evaluation of the programme revealed wide gaps between promise and performance. Reported yields fell by a third to a quarter between time of purchase and survey. Satisfaction levels had dropped. Cattle with multiple calves had been distributed, when they should not have been. Procurement officials typically downplayed the complaints; they blamed declining quality on Gujarat’s thriving dairy industry and a rising demand for cattle. Surveyors found that ineligible non-poor were claiming benefits.

Arti Thakar, the official who was overall in charge under the Vanbandhu project, says the programme was “bilkul kamyab” (totally successful). Official brochures endorse the claim with facts. They cite the same agency, GIDR, that did the first evaluation, as finding a “high level of satisfaction” in the subsequent round. Dairying has become the mainstay for half the participating families – in Sabarkantha the proportion is as high as 78 percent is the official lore. In some talukas average milk yield is reported to have risen by 35 to 40 percent. Concerns are also flagged off: scanty rainfall and lack of fodder, shortage of good cattle, unaffordable feed, and a legacy of inferior animals that should be culled to save fodder but are not owing to religious sensitivities.

“Subsidy ki bhains mehngi padti hai (buying subsidised buffalo proves costly),” says Ramsingh Damor of Dahod’s Chosala village. On his own he can negotiate a lower price. But bank officials and procurement committees specify the trader they should buy from. It is a nexus hard to crack.

Not all tribals are victims, though. Some have learnt to game the scheme. Sadiya of Dahod’s Sangada Phaliya village has no idea how much loan he has repaid. The clerk at the collection point urges him to keep sending milk in – “the accounting can be done later”. Suspecting mischief, Sadiya played along, retaining as much milk as he possibly could. His buffalo, on way to calving, has gone dry. A fresh loan cannot be contracted without repaying the first; Sadiya is thinking of getting another eligible tribal to front for him.

His neighbour Babu Mohania, a ‘fixer’ of sorts, has similar plans. In February, he spoke glowingly of dairying turning the fortunes of his village, Wakiya. Over a year ago, 50 farmers had been given buffaloes; 80 were in queue and a '2.45-crore cattle shed project was awaiting approval. In April, he was complaining that his buffalo had gone dry midway through the loan. “Now I have a loan to repay and an animal to feed. It has become a burden,” he says without betraying any sign of distress. He is confident that a deposit of '2,000 would fetch him another buffalo through another loanee.

These are perhaps the necessary hazards of any scheme that aims at the mass conversion of down-and-out tribals to dairying. It is not a factory process where you feed inputs at one end and get output at the other, says Surendrabahadur Singh of Vasudhara Dairy.

A resident of Uttar Pradesh who has been initiating tribals into dairying for 30 years, Singh says he found no tradition of dairying among the locals when he took up the job: “They would drink black tea.” Experts at the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) had pronounced the dairy a non-starter for this reason. But its trustees persevered. They wanted to give the tribals an alternative to toiling in the cities. From 2,000 litres of milk a day to 3.80 lakh, the dairy has come a long way.

The membership has risen to 1.17 lakh; 64 percent of them tribal.

Vasudhara Dairy is the kind of cooperative that is fully aligned with Vanbandhu’s ambition because it understands tribals and inspires trust in them. This cannot be said of many of the other dairies, which Vanbandhu has perforce to partner with for want of an option. Some of these are run by politicians who are less than high-minded.

If Vasudhara Dairy had its way – and it did have flexibility under former tribal affairs secretary Anand Mohan Tiwari – Vanbandhu’s focus on the poorest tribals would be amended. Those below the poverty line have little income and no land. Wage labour leaves scant time for the kind of care that hybrid cattle need: green fodder, nutritious feed, copious water and some space. There are bio-rhythms to be observed like signs of heat in cattle, the time for insemination and the daily milking schedule which is governed by hormones. Singh thinks any tribal who has the inclination must be given the dole to get started. There is little harm done even if the non-poor get it. In fact, they might inspire by example. For him aspiration is the key to the success of dairying, followed by training, acquisition of cattle, heifer rearing and pregnant cow care. “We tell people to be business-minded, not to be subsidy-oriented,” he says.

Politicians may count success by the numbers of cattle distributed or amount of loan disbursed. Melas, where benefits can be showered, are welcomed as occasions to brag. But dairying is a slow, accretive process. It demands a discipline many tribals are not prepared for. Jobs in Gujarat’s many industrial hubs are a distraction. But they do not reckon with the collateral damage: loss of dignity, hazardous work conditions, precarious life in slums and the neglect of schooling.

Living off bovines is less feline.

 (Fernandes is a senior journalist. This report was made possible by a fellowship from the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.)