BHUBANESWAR: The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) will set up a state-of-the-art automated milk processing plant in Odisha by the end of next year.
The modern milk processing plant, to be set up with an investment of `242 crore, will have a capacity of five lakh litre per day. It will come up at Arilo Govindpur in Cuttack district. NDDB Group Head (PR and Communications) Abhijit Bhattacharjee said the plant will process liquid milk and have facilities for ultra high temperature treatment of milk powder and packaging.
“The plant will also produce butter, ghee, paneer, fermented products like butter milk, lassi and flavoured milk along with their packing. We hope that the plant will be ready by October, 2020,” he said.
Earlier, Odisha Milk Federation (Omfed) and NDDB had signed an agreement to set up the dairy plant. The NDDB has already built a cattle feed plant with an installed capacity of 150 MT per day on behalf of Omfed at Jagannathpur in Khurda district.
Bhattacharjee said the Dairy Board has sanctioned a loan amounting to `40.85 lakh in March this year to Greater Ganjam Gajapati Milk Union for purchase of five milk ATMs, pasteuriser and homogeniser. “Eastern India’s first milk ATM will be set up at Berhampur with the support of NDDB and Tata Trusts.
NDDB has also approved a grant of `8 lakh to Omfed for milk fortification in order to address the issue of micro-nutrient deficiency. “Of the targeted 800 lakh litre of milk, Omfed has fortified around 511 lakh litre till January, 2019,” he said.
In order to give a fillip to its Safal brand in the State, NDDB’s wholly-owned subsidiary Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Pvt Limited has decided to enhance its outreach from 1,485 farmers to 4,515 during this fiscal. It has also planned to increase its number of stores in Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur from 25 to 50 this year.
Meanwhile, the NDDB has demonstrated the concept of flexi bio-gas plant in the milk sheds of Greater Ganjam Gajapati and Samaleswari Milk Unions. It has been proposed to install 115 such flexi bio-gas plants in milk sheds of Cuttack, Ganjam, Balasore and Samaleswari Milk Unions.