THE Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited— popularly known as Banas Dairy — in Palanpur has formally started preparations for setting up a milk plant in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi.

A team from Banas Dairy, led by its chairman Shankar Chau-dhary, accompanied by directors, visited Varanasi Sunday after allocation of land for the dairy.

“We are thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the 51 bigha land allocated by the state industrial corporation for setting up a dairy plant. To be set up with an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore, it will have a capacity of 5 lakh litre per day. This will certainly help not only the local farmers who will get fair price for their milk, but also help Banas Dairy,” Chaudhary stated in a video message released from Varanasi Sunday.

The team visited the allocated land to work out on feasibility and materialising the project. In addition to 5 lakh per day litre of milk, the plant to be set up in Varanasi will also produce ice cream, sweets, paneer (cottage cheese), buttermilk, curd and other milk products.

According to official sources, Banas Dairy had supplied over 100 Gir Cows to families in Varanasi in July 2021. These Gir cows were meant to help these families increase milk production as the local cow breeds in Uttar Pradesh produce less milk. Officials from the Dairy had told The Indian Express earlier that these cows were transported through the road route.

The Banas Dairy had hosted some of the families from Varanasi in Banaskantha district for a few weeks, where cow-rearing was taught to them, officials added

The Banas Dairy which has collected over 85 lakh litres of milk per day in 2020-21 is also building a second milk processing plant with a capacity of 50 lakh litres per day at Deodar in Banaskantha.

Source : The Indian Express , Sep 6 2021