Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets its dairy products under the brand ‘Amul', today said it is likely to augment milk supply in Maharashtra by six lakh litres from next year with the setting up of a plant by its affiliate Kaira Cooperative.

An affiliate of GCMMF, Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union, is in the process of setting up a greenfield dairy at Virar in Mumbai, having initial milk processing capacity of close to six lakh litres per day.

“The plant in Virar being set up by Kaira will have milk processing capacity of six lakh litres expandable to over eight lakh litres, and it will augment our milk supply in Maharashtra,” the GCMMF Managing Director, Mr R.S. Sodhi, told PTI.

At present, GCMMF supplies close to nine lakh litres of milk a day to Maharashtra through its three affiliate dairy unions and a couple of private dairies in Mumbai whom it has hired for milk collections.

“The dairy plant being set up at an investment of Rs 150 crore in Virar near Mumbai is expected to be up and running between January to February next year,” Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Chairman Ramsinh Parmar said.

“It shall be our third plant in the country. Kaira presently owns one dairy plant each in Gujarat and Pune. The plant in Pune has capacity milk processing capacity of one lakh litre,” he said.

“Besides, milk we shall be producing curd, chaas (butter milk) and ice-cream there,” Mr Parmar said.

“The plant will have a ice-cream manufacturing unit with initial production capacity of 25 KLPD expandable to 50 KLPD,” he said.

“We shall be procuring milk locally in Maharashtra, but even the excess milk procured in Gujarat could also be diverted for processing to the dairy coming up in Virar,” Mr Parmar said.

Anand district based GCMMF in Gujarat, has 13 dairy member unions and Kaira dairy is one of its affiliates. The federation has 3.03 million producer members and has total milk handling capacity of 13.76 million litres daily.

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