Amul to set up milk processing plant in West Bengal by 2018

“We have been allotted a 17 acre land in Sankrail food park by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, where we will be setting up centralised milk processing plant by 2018,” said Rathnam.

The Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, which is known as Amul popularly, is headquartered at Anand in Gujarat.

This will be the company’s seventh centralised milk producing plant in India.

“We look forward to invest Rs 200 crore in setting up this plant in West Bengal. The construction of this plant will start in 2017 and we expect it to get completed by 2018. The plant will manufacture normal milk, UHT milk, yoghurt and ghee,” added Rathnam.

Talking about Amul’s future expansion plans in West Bengal K Rathnam said: "Presently we are producing 7.5 lakh litres of milk per day but we look forward to take it to 20 lakh litres by 2020.”

With local players like Indian Dairy the company will start procuring milk directly from the farmers in West Bengal.

Indian Dairy which manufactures Amul products in West Bengal has set up a 200 tpd cattle feed plant to cater to the local needs of Amul and also for selling in the market.

“The cattle feed manufacturing plant will be a major step in backward integration for Amul Dairy and would go a long way in increasing the milk production in the state. This is our second manufacturing plant in India, with this we want to increase our footprint in the region,” said Rathnam.

On asking about the government’s recent move to withdraw high-denomination currency notes in India, Rathnam said:"Demonetization will help us in the long run. It is a very good step, initially we might face difficulties. This won’t affect us much as all our financial transactions are done through banks.”

(Reporting by Adit Majumder, Images by Souvik Das/IBNS)