The Telangana State Dairy Development Cooperative Federation has embarked upon a major expansion drive, involving setting up of a state-of-the-art milk processing plant.
The federation, marketing milk and dairy products under the popular brand name Vijaya, has sent proposals for its expansion with an estimated ₹ 175 crore to the Central government. Senior officials said the assistance was sought under the Dairy Processing & Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) launched by the Centre.
The DIDF envisages building an efficient milk procurement system by setting up of chilling infrastructure and installation of electronic milk adulteration testing equipment, creation/modernisation/expansion of processing infrastructure and manufacturing faculties for Value Added Products. The development comes in the light of the public sector dairy’s plans to augment its capacity from around 4.5 lakh litres to 8 lakh litres besides diversification into sectors like ice cream making.
A senior official told The Hindu that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development would give the required loan if the proposal receives the consent of the National Dairy Development Board or the National Cooperative Development Corporation and accordingly, the federation had fine-tuned the action plan prepared in this regard and communicated it to the NDDB. “The NDDB is examining the proposal,” the official said. The loan would require the State government’s guarantee which was received in-principle and the federation would contribute its share of 20% once the quantum of assistance was communicated. “The site has already been identified, but it is yet to be handed over to the federation,” the official said.