Dairy industry effluent will pollute the environment if not properly treated. In the present work, the feasibility of nonthermal plasma (NTP) for the treatment of dairy industry effluent is assessed. The effect of energy yield and plasma intensity on reduction of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal is investigated. Box–Behnken design (BBD) is employed to optimize the operating parameters such as initial pH (5–9), reaction time (4–8 h), effluent flow rate (10–90 ml/min) and applied voltage (20–30 kV) where COD and energy yield are taken as responses. The optimum condition for COD removal and energy yield is same with a pH of 9, effluent flow rate of 10 ml/min and applied voltage of 30 kVp‐p, whereas reaction time differs as 8 and 4 h, respectively. COD reduction of 52% indicates that NTP process is a promising technology for dairy effluent treatment.