In Kalappanaickenpatti village in Senthamangalam Taluk of Tamil Nadu, a milk vending machine developed by a youth is helping people buy farm-fresh cow milk for even Rs. 5.
While studying mechanical engineering at a college in Chennai for his final year, the 24-year-old C. Balamurugan got the idea of developing a milk vending machine that will help both farmers and people.
He built the unit that takes only cash at first and dispatches the milk in containers. It took him a year to upgrade and add more features to the machine in which the card system was added as well as recharging the cards in the machine
'The unit, put on Kollimalai Road at my family shop, received a strong response as people get fresh milk,' he said. Milk from his cows and neighbors is collected in a tub of 40 liters and is accessible from 5.30 am to 8 am and from 4.30 pm till 6.30 pm as well on a daily basis. Mr. Balamurugan said that even for 5 or 10 or more, consumers can get milk by using a card.
The machine supports people who do not have refrigerators when they buy milk twice a day for Rs. 5.
Balamurugan said the cost of the cooling model in which milk can be processed for a day is about 1.75 lakh, whereas there is about 60,000 for a simple model without a cooling system. He began collecting requests for personalized sales machines from farms and traders.
