Indian dairy firm Verka has commenced operations at its new dairy and ice cream plant built with an investment of INR320m ($4.7m) in Punjab state.
Dubbed as the Verka Bathinda Dairy and located in Bathinda, the dairy and ice cream unit broke ground in April.
With an initial production capacity of 1,00,000 litres per day, the Verka Bathinda Dairy will be grown to a capacity of 2,00,000 litres per day, said the company.
The new plant would primarily fulfill the ice cream requirements of consumers in the region.
Verka chairman Amarjit Singh Sidhu said: "The project is worth INR320m ($4.7m) and INR220m ($2.2m) have been spent on this fully automated unit and the balance INR100m ($1.48m) has been spent on village level infrastructure for procuring milk from the farmers in Bathinda and Mansa districts so that quality of milk is maintained in the entire supply chain.
“This has resulted in enhanced milk procurement of 25% this year over last year. The project would help in value addition of milk which will help the Federation to pay more price to the farmers.”
Sidhu concluded that the new unit would open up job opportunities for the local youth.
The flagship brand of MILKFED (The Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation), Verka has a three tier system which includes milk producers cooperatives at the village level followed up by milk unions at the district level and a federation serving as an apex body at the state level.
As of now, Verka claims to have about 7,000 village milk producers’ cooperative societies, which in turn, collectively have more than 3,80,000 members.
