Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers Union Limited, popularly known as Amul Dairy, will begin milk procurement in Nepal and Sri Lanka, after commencing operations in the US two years back. “We are expanding our milk procurement and processing base in four states including Assam, Bihar, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. To begin with we will start milk procurement in districts bordering the Indo-Nepal belt whereas we are in talks with the government of Sri Lanka to start procurement there,” said Amul Dairy's managing director Dr K Rathnam.
The dairy received approval to start procurement in the two neighbouring countries during its 71st annual general body meeting in Anand last week. “Both Nepal and Sri Lanka have huge potential in terms of dairy development,” Rathnam said. He added that milk procured through village level societies in Nepal will be processed at Amul Dairy's plant in Sikkim, located 7 km from Nepal border. “Since, we will work in association with the local government's there, we will approach Gujarat government for its nod and also place a formal request seeking permission from Nepal and Sri Lanka.”
Milk procured from Bihar, where the dairy has a target to collect 100,000 litres per day, will be processed at the Siliguri plant in West Bengal. At Assam and Tamil Nadu, the dairy will start milk processing through third party operations. Meanwhile, the plant based in Waterloo, New Jersey in US has registered £1.7 million turnover last year. The plant which was started through a tripartite agreement through third party operations in the end of 2015 manufactures three dairy products, including paneer, ghee and `sri khand'.
