The milk distribution scheme, he adds, would be replicated in the western suburbs and elsewhere across the state. “We are targeting a daily collection of Rs 1,000 and an annual collection of Rs 12 lakh to Rs 15 lakh,” Chavan said.

The project has already met with limited success in the central suburbs, members of the distribution society claim. They say they have won over 3,500 customers, including 25 major ones, since they launched informally this month, with many switching loyalties to them.

The new Marathi milkmen include students, men with day jobs and even those unemployed until now. Twenty-three-year-old Mahesh Pingle, in his first year of graduation, says he decided to join the cooperative after hearing of it from his friends and now earns Rs 5,000 a month.

Kishore Supal, who supplies milk to 70 families in Nahar and Bhatwadi, was doing 12-hour shifts at a courier company for Rs 2,500 a month. He now distributes milk in the morning and works later as a peon in a travel agency. “My income has doubled,” says Supal, who makes an extra Rs 3,500 a month now.

The cooperative works on a no-profit-no-loss basis, providing Re 1 as commission per litre to its members as against 40 paise earned by other distributors.

Much of the marketing was done by “word-of-mouth”, and considering the MNS’s clout in the Maharashtrian areas of the central suburbs, few would have dared to not fall for the campaign.

Housewife Nanda Sanjay Gunjal, a Ghatkopar resident, is one of the new converts. “After we got to know of Maharashtrian youth doing the job, we discontinued the bhaiyya,” she said. “If I can do my bit by purchasing milk from them, I’d be happy to have supported them.”

... contd.