Amul Dairy to set up plant in AP, Pune and Punjab

The Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited, popularly known as Amul Dairy, will be setting up new plants at Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, Pune and Punjab.

For this, Gujarat’s oldest milk co-operative will be investing Rs 1,000 crore over the next couple of years. In the last financial year, it invested Rs 1,000 crore in the expansion of its plants.

Amul Dairy is setting up a milk processing plant at Chittoor, which will be the first Amul-owned plant serving the five southern states of the country.

The AP govt had entered an agreement with Amul for revival of the defunct Chittoor Dairy, popularly called Vijaya Dairy. Once known for being the second-largest dairy in the country, production at Chittoor Dairy was suspended for over 20 years due to its debts ballooning to Rs 182 crore.

To inject new life into the defunct dairy, the AP govt has collaborated with Amul. “According to the agreement, we have already started the first phase of procurement, processing and packaging at Chittoor,” said Amul Dairy managing director Amit Vyas. Currently, Amul procures and processes 50,000 litres of milk in the region. “The new plant will be a fresh investment. We are hoping the new plant will be ready in four months,” he said.

In Maharashtra, the dairy already runs an ice-cream plant at Virar. It is now setting up another ice-cream plant with a capacity of 1 lakh litres per day in Pune.

The dairy hopes to begin the operations of the Pune plant on Oct 31, which it traditionally celebrates as its Foundation Day. In Punjab, the milk union is expanding its plant to manufacture sweets, white butter, UHT milk and paneer. “We have bought additional land to manufacture ice-cream and other dairy products,” Vyas said.

The union currently owns plants in Anand, Mogar, Khatraj, Kapdivav near Kapadvanj in Gujarat, apart from Mumbai, Pune and Punjab.