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Dairying is a subordinate activity in rural India, ancillary to Agriculture. Agriculture gives livelihood to 70% of India‘s population. Farmers of rural India have dependency on Monsoon for their production. As often due to monsoon failure, unemployment and seasonal employment situations occur frequently. Dairying in India is considered as implement for change in these circumstances. It provides regular and steady income and employment to farmers. Presently, Dairy farming has become one of the important activities of the rural population of our country. In India, dairy development has been promoted largely through dairy co-operatives. Income from dairying provide nearly one third of the rural households gross income. (Patel 2004) Today India is largely self-sufficient in milk production as farmers have adopted dairying as subsidiary activity of agriculture. India ranks first in milk production, accounting for 19 percent of the world production. It owns the largest livestock population in the world. Now dairying is recognized as an instrument for social and economic development. The major milk supply comes from rural regions of India. Dairying in India has become a female dominated activity. It is seen that women spent more time than men in dairy activities. Women always participate in dairy and animal husbandry activities with addition of their household chores. This is notable that women are involved mostly in non-financial activities as caring of animals followed by cleaning of animal sheds, feeding the cattle’s, milking and disposal of cow dung. Although percentage of women who are engaged in maintenance work in quite high than to men. Consequently their share in economic and social status is smaller than their contribution. The present research is designed to study the significant role and extent involvement of women in development of dairy industry.

1. A.R.Melveille (1974)

He conducted research to create dairying as a tool for transformation. Small farmers must be able to sell their extra milk each day, and the amounts they are paid must be reasonable and sufficient to entice and inspire them. According to the claim, the dairy industry cooperative appears to be the only option for the desired development of the dairy business. The milk trade needs to be institutionalized from the production stage to marketing.

2. Rao(1976)

 He concluded that rural women’s      contribution was negatively correlated with the size of their family and land holding. According to studies, the socio economic status of the different families affects how many women work in agricultural and animal husbandry.

3. Malathi (1979 )

Additionally, he discovered a connection between caste, age, education, and extension connections and women's participation. The adoption of better practices was found to be connected with women's socioeconomic level.

4. Swaminathan (1985)

"Women confront great problems," he noted, "despite their role in agricultural productivity. Inheritance laws and practices discriminate against them, making them the biggest group of landless laborers with little real security in the event of a family's dissolution due to death or divorce. Males receive sole title and, hence, the security under land reform and settlement initiatives. Men serve as the majority of extension workers, who advise men and men's activity. However, the Government has recently given some thought to the inadequate inheritance laws, property rights, and representation of women on civic bodies.

5. Shirish Sharma (2019)

Studies on commercial dairy farming. He Found that dairy cooperatives have provided systemize network of milk marketing, health care of bovines and feed inputs in the villages.

It is beneficial to improve economic conditions of milk producers and consumers.

Dairy development program in Rajasthan started in 1975, in the Padma dairy of Ajmer, which is the oldest dairy in Rajasthan. Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation (RCDF) was set up in 1977; it’s the nodal agency which is responsible for implementation of Dairy Programs and operations. Ajmer Zila dhugdh utpadak sahkari sangh limited (Ajmer dairy) is the Government authorized milk plant in Ajmer. It manages production and dairy activities in the city. The secondary data sources revealed that Ajmer has production of 6 lakh liter milk per day in which 2 lakh liter is produced by Ajmer Dairy. Presently, there are 732 cooperative milk societies and 51,800 members are working with Ajmer Dairy. Largely, rural women are engaged in dairy activities. For the present investigation, the data is tabulated for systematic statistical analysis.

Table1. Comparative analysis of State v/s city

	Rajasthan	Ajmer city
Total registered Cooperative societies	13878	732
Total registered Female Cooperative societies	5494	165
Total members	76,1953	51800
Total female members	2.8 lakh	22000
Total milk collection per day	464 lakh kg	6 lakh kg

The above comparative study revealed that there are 13878 registered Cooperative societies in which female Cooperatives are 5494 which is 39% total Cooperative societies. Where as in Ajmer city the total number of registered Cooperative societies is 732 of which 165 are Female Cooperative societies. That’s 22% of total Cooperative societies. It’s analyzed that there are 761953 total member of RCDF who are providing milk of which 2.8 lakh are female members and that’s 36% of total members. However there are 51800 members who are providing milk in Ajmer city in which females are 14900, so there are 28% female members in Ajmer city.

Table2. Participation of women in Dairy activities N=240

S.no.	Character	No.	%
1	Feeding and watering	192	80.00
2	Management	184	76.66
3	Breeding	102	42.50
4	Health care	186	77.50
5	Processing and Marketing	130	54.16
6	Miscellaneous	120	50.00

*N= Number of observations.

Feeding and watering: The study revealed that major work of feeding and watering is responsibility of women. It is observed that women are taking to animals for grazing and collecting fodder. The study revealed that 80% women are engaged in feeding animals followed by watering to animals.

Management: The next major activity, in which women participate actively, is management of livestock. Study revealed that 76.66% women are engaged in management. They are participating in maintaining shed, construction, grooming of animals, cleaning utensils, disposal of cow dung etc.

Breeding: Women who are engaged in breeding work found to be least among all the activities. The study revealed that only 42.50% women are involved in taking animals for pregnancy diagnosis.

Health care: The health care of animals is solely performed by women in study area. Study has revealed that 77.50% women are performing in caring, medication, vaccination of animals.

Processing and marketing: The participation of women in processing and marketing was not much appreciated as men tend to do marketing work in study region. Although percentage of women involved in this is 54.16%, they are performing in milk sale majorly.

Miscellaneous: Majority of the women in this region were ignorant in maintaining records, banking activities, loan credits. It was observed that only 50% women maintained records in the form of small book or on piece of papers.

Data base for the study acquired from the following: Primary data has been collected from field survey- cum questionnaire method at level of village cooperative societies, milk producers and small farmers. Secondary data has been collected from various reports published by Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation (RCDF), National Dairy Development Board, Ajmer Dairy and Development of Animal husbandry. Data has also been taken from the following reports/journals published periodically/annually: 1. Indian journals of Agricultural Economics. 2. Shodh Ganga.

1. Mariammal, R 2019 Entrepreneurial behavior of rural farm women in dairying. 2. Rao,R. (1976). A Study of influences of selected factors on Rural Women’s participation in Agricultural tasks, M.Sc. Thesis (unpub) lady Irwin college, University of Delhi, New Delhi. 3. Swaminathan M.S. (1985), Women and rural development. Mainstream ( Annual Number), 113-118 4. Khandelwal Shweta (2002), Women Empowerment through Dairying: A case study of Jaipur milk Shed Area(Unpb.) Dissertation of M.Phil, UOR, Jaipur. 5. Khandelwal Shweta (2008), Dairying as an instrument of employment generation and socio-economic changes : An appraisal of Jaipur Milk Shed Area. 6. Bhat, E.R. (1988), Multiple operations of Farm Women: Issues and implications, A paper presented to international conference on Appropriate Agricultural technologies for Farm Women held at ICAR, New Delhi. 7. Dr. J.B. kathiriya, Dilip Damasia, B.B. kabriya (July, 2013) Role of rural women in Dairy farming of Rajkot. 8. Shirish Sharma, Commercial Dairy Farming in Jaipur District of Rajasthan: A Case Study.