Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today approved the setting up of a mega dairy plant with handling capacity of 5 lakh liters of milk per day involving an investment of nearly Rs.75 crore at Bassi Pathana in Fatehgarh Sahib District.While reviewing the progress of Milkfed during a meeting here at CMO this morning, the Chief Minister was apprised that the upcoming ultra modern dairy plant would process the milk procured from the local milk producer unions into the long shelf life homogenized milk. The new dairy plant would also process the surplus milk available from the other milk plants in the state. This dairy plant would also house an automatic ‘Paneer’ Plant to meet its growing demand in the market apart from undertaking packaging of milk in tetra and flexi packs.
Mr. Badal said that it was the high time to focus attention towards the development of Dairy sector in order to help the farmers by supplementing their income from dairying on one hand and enhancing the profits of Milkfed on the other, as the traditional agriculture has already reached a plateau. Thus, the development and growth of dairy sector has assumed all the more significant and pro-active role to play in the current scenario adding, Mr. Badal said that now we should give thrust on the growth of allied farming in terms of dairy, apiary, mushroom cultivation, fishery, piggery, goatry besides horticulture and floriculture. This would result in improving the economic lot of the farmers whose profits have been drastically reduced due to the high cost of agriculture inputs in terms of traditional farming.
In order to bring far more efficiency in the functioning of the Milkfed, the Chief Minister also gave nod to start fresh recruitment as well as undertake campus recruitments to infuse fresh talent in the organization and to overcome the shortage of the staff with a view to achieve optimum utilization of the Milk plants in the state. The Chief Minister also emphasized the need to explore ways and means to primarily focus on the procurement and marketing of milk and milk products to enhance its profitability. The Chief Minister also approved to introduce special line of desi cow breeding so as to market its milk and milk products, which were in huge demand both in the domestic as well as in international market.
Mr. Badal also asked the Milkfed to concentrate especially on diversifying product range with specific thrust on value addition of products as the ‘Verka’ was a premium brand not in the country but across the globe adding he said that the untapped marketing potential of Milkfed must be utilized to the hilt.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Milkfed informed the Chief Minister about the services sought from the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) for developing a marketing and export strategy to make Milkfed financially viable and economically sustainable.Prominent amongst other who were present on the occasion included Chairman Milkfed Mr. Amarjeet Singh Sidhu, Financial Commissioner Cooperation Mr. S.K. Sandhu, Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. Gaggandip Singh Brar and MD Milkfed Mr. Manjit Singh Brar.