The foundation stone-laying ceremony of a 2.5 lakh litre milk dairy and administrative building of Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union will be held at Uppoor village near Udupi on April 16.
Speaking to presspersons on Thursday, Raviraj Hegde, president of Dakshina Kannada Milk Producers; Union, said the new dairy would be constructed on 5.9 acres of land for around ₹92 crore, and would be built under turnkey basis by the National Dairy Development Board. The construction is expected to be completed by 2018.
The dairy will help in the production of 35,000 kg of curds in addition to buttermilk, ghee and lassi. Equipment to produce butter and paneer would be installed at the dairy. There were 702 milk producers associations under the union, which was collecting 3.72 lakh kg of milk daily. The union was selling about 3.5 lakh litres of milk and 60,000 kg of curd daily.
In Udupi district, the daily milk collection stood at 1.87 lakh kg, while 1.2 lakh litres of milk was sold every day. About 20,000 kg of curds was being produced at the dairy in Mangaluru and transported to the dairy in Manipal.
The daily collection of milk in Udupi district was expected to increase to 2.76 lakh kg in the next five years, while its daily sale was expected to touch 1.57 litres. The sale of curds was expected to increase to 32,000 kg during this period.
