To be used to make Amul products such as butter milk, kheer, rabdi and curd
In a major push for milk processing and value-addition in dairying in Kutch district, the Kutch District Cooperative Milk Marketing Union – Sarhad Dairy – will set up its own milk processing facility in Anjar. This is set to cut down on transport cost and time taken to send the milk about 350 km away to Gandhinagar processing centre.
The foundation stone for the project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Sarhad Dairy will invest ₹121 crore for the facility, which will have capacity to process 2 lakh litres of milk per day (LLPD), which can be ramped up to 4 LLPD in future.
According to Sarhad Dairy officials, the dairy, which is one of the 18-member unions of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF), which markets Amul milk products, looks to make butter milk, kheer, rabdi and curd products and will sell under Amul brand.
Contribution of dairy farming
Underlining the importance of dairy farming in the overall agriculture economy in the country, Modi said, “The contribution of dairy sector in the overall agriculture economy of the country is more than 25 per cent, which works out to about ₹8 lakh crore. Total value of milk production is higher than the value of grains and pulses. The dairy farmers are mostly small and marginal farmers, which is the same story nationally too.”
Set up as a cooperative union in 2009 under the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s guidance, the dairy had started operations with 14 cooperative societies and 1400 litres of daily milk procurement.
Today, the Sarhad Dairy has 680 cooperative milk societies associated with it involving over 70,000 dairy farmers with milk collection of more than 4.5 LLPD. The dairy union has 125 women cooperative societies and over 10,000 women members to it.
Desal plant
Besides the dairy processing facility, the Prime Minister also laid foundation stone for a desalination plant to come up at Mandvi on Kutch coast. “This Desalination Plant, with 10 crore litre per day capacity (100 MLD), will strengthen water security in Gujarat by complementing Narmada Grid, SAUNI network and treated waste water infrastructure. It will be an important milestone for sustainable and affordable water resource harvesting in the country,” Modi said in his address.
Apart from the desalination plant at Mandvi, four more such plants will come up at Dahej (100 MLD), Dwarka (70 MLD), Ghogha Bhavnagar (70 MLD) and Gir Somnath (30 MLD).
