RAJKOT: The district administration has identified 100 acre land near Aandanpar village that can be allocated to Gujarat co-operative milk marketing federation (GCMMF) to set up an advanced state of art milk processing plant.
A decision in this regard was taken in September 2020 in a board meeting of GCMMF to set up its unit somewhere on the Jamnagar road.
The GCMMF, which markets brand Amul, had been demanding the government to provide land at a token rate.
In line with its biggest milk processing plant in Gandhinagar that has a capacity of 50 lakh litre per day, the federation was planning a plant with a capacity of 30 lakh litre per day at the cost of Rs 200 crore near Rajkot to facilitate milk producers of Saurashtra and Kutch.
On Thursday, Rajkot district collector Remya Mohan said, “We have identified a plot of land near Anandpar Navagam village on Rajkot-Ahmedabad highway in the outskirts of the city that could be allocated to the GCMMF for its milk plant.
If the milk processing plant comes at at the site, it will be a good news for the dairy farmers of entire Saurashtra.” Collector office sources said that the land belongs to two villages — Anandpar Navagam and Sokhda.
The diary giant has already paid one percent amount of Jantri value, which is a requirement as per law to initiate the process of identifying government land.
In the second stage, the valuation committee headed by the collector will finalize the value of the land as per market rate and send a report to the state government.
The cabinet will take a final decision on the land price.
Vice-chairman of GCMMF, Valmji Humbal said that the federation already met CM Vijay Rupani last week and requested land for free or at best a token rate.
“The government also had provided Gandhinagar land at a token rate.
This plant will save milk farmers Rs 30 lakh on transportation cost every day,” he added.
At present, 10 milk unions in Saurashtra and Kutch collect around 30 lakh litre milk per day and utilize half the amount to produce milk, buttermilk, curd and ghee.
The remaining 15 lakh litre is sent to Gandhinagar which GCMMF utilizes to produce milk products like srikhand, ice cream, chocolate, cheese, butter and skimmed milk powder under the brand name of Amul.
Anandpar has a strategic advantage Milk to the proposed plant at Anandpar will come from entire Saurashtra and Kutch and owing to its strategic location, milk trucks can reach it directly without entering into the city area.
While those vehicles coming from Jamnagar, Dwarka, Morbi and Kutch can reach it using Maliyasan road, those from Junagadh, Gir Somnath and Amreli can access the bypass to reach its destination.
Again, a third Ring Road proposes to connect the traffic of Jamnagar and Junagadh to Ahmedabad in the future.