Milk, butter plant to expand Verka’s reach

If Ludhiana was so far famous for industry and commerce, it will now also be known as one of the leading milk and butter producers in the country, the government has claimed.

Upcoming Projects in state

• A new State Central Dairy Laboratory in Mohali under the Centre’s NPDD scheme at the cost of Rs 8 crore, including Rs 6.12 crore for equipment and Rs 1.87 crore for civil works.
• An automatic unit having a capacity of 1.25 LLPD for processing and packaging of fermented products (curd and lassi) at the cost of Rs 84 crore in Jalandhar, which is expected to be completed by April next year.
• A by-pass protein plant at Ghanie-Ke-Banger at the cost of Rs 10.14 crore on a turnkey basis through the NDDB.
• A modern and automatic mineral mixture plant in Khanna, Ludhiana district, at the cost of Rs 50 lakh.

Verka milk and allied products have already created a niche in the national market, which will be further widened with the opening of new plants and upgrading the existing ones. — Bhagwant Mann, Chief minister

The new state-of-the-art milk and butter plant will augment supply and expand Verka, a household name of the state-owned Cooperative Milkfed, reach across the country and even abroad, officials have said.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had on Wednesday inaugurated the Rs 105-crore project, which was installed with the most advanced technology to produce 9 lakh litres per day (LLPD) of milk and 10 metric tonnes per day (MTPD) of butter.

Milkfed General Manager Sanjeev Sharma told The Tribune, here, on Thursday that the new fully automatic plant had come up in three years and seven months after the foundation stone of the new building was laid on March 3, 2019.

“With Rs 104-54-crore total outlay, the objective of the project is to establish a new state-of-art automatic milk processing plant of 9 LLPD capacity with 10 TPD continuous butter making plant having energy, steam and water efficient technology along with modern ETP plant, electrical substation, refrigeration plant and civil works,” he said.

He said the project was implemented under the Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) scheme and was undertaken by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on a turnkey basis.

Of the total Rs 104.54-crore project outlay, a sum of Rs 79.87 crore was sanctioned as loan under the Dairy Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) scheme and Rs 24.67 crore was being invested by Verka Ludhiana Dairy from its own sources. A sum of Rs 24.67 crore (component of Verka Ludhiana Dairy) has already been disbursed to the NDDB.

Sharma said the new plant would help complete coverage of cold chain in milk procurement at the village level, strengthen the milk testing infrastructure at the village level by 100 per cent coverage within three years, and 100 per cent coverage of milk catchment villages with surplus milk availability.

“It will further boost Verka’s strong presence in the Delhi NCR, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and other adjoining states, besides implementation of ERP-based monitoring and reporting system within three years,” he said, adding that the flush ratio of milk would be achieved 1:1.5, instead of present 1:2.

Divulging the progress of Milkfed, the GM said the annual turnover of Milkfed stood at Rs 4,869 crore in 2021-22 against Rs 2,967 crore in 2016-17, which accounted for an overall increase of 64.1 per cent.

At present, Verka sources milk from over 3.5 lakh members of around 6,059 village milk producers’ cooperative societies.

While 19.17 lakh kg of milk per day on an average was procured during 2021-22 as compared to average of 14.85 lakh kg milk procurement per day during 2016-17.

He said Verka was paying remunerative price of up to Rs 785 per kg fat to milk producers in current fiscal 2022-23.

Milkfed has recently launched dairy whitener in 5 gm, 10 gm, 20 gm, 200 gm, 500 gm, 1 kg and bulk packaging, natural ice-creams in four flavours, and premium ice-cream under Amour sub-brand of Verka in seven flavours.

Source: Tribune India