Milk plant inaugurated in Mandi

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur today inaugurated a new Milkfed Plant of over 50,000 litres capacity at Chakkar in the Balh area of Mandi district. It has been constructed at a cost of Rs 16.32 crore. He also inaugurated a Community Health Centre at Gagal and a Primary Health Centre at Rajgarh.

He said the plant would process milk in a semi-automatic way and provide a facility for the procurement of more milk from dairy farmers.

Thakur, while addressing a public meeting at Chakkar, said that the HP Milkfed collected about 395 lakh litres of milk from 47,295 farmers during 2021-22 and Rs 110.56 crore was paid to them. “Milk is one of the most important sources of income for the farmers of the state.

During the tenure of my government, milk procurement has increased by 78 per cent, from 219 lakh litres during 2017-18 to 395.39 lakh litres during 2021-22. The total turnover of the Himachal Pradesh Milk Federation during 2017-18 was Rs 99 crore and it has increased to Rs 172 crore during 2021-22,” he added.

The Chief Minister said that the BJP government had increased the milk price paid to farmers by Rs 9, from Rs 22.90 per litre during 2017-18 to Rs 31.90 per litre during 2022-23. He added that the commission paid to milk societies was also increased from 4.5 per cent to 5 per cent and the Milk Federation was paying the best price in the country to dairy farmers.

He said, “Milkfed has 11 processing plants, one cattle feed plant and one powder plant functioning in the state. With the commissioning of the new plant at Chakkar in Mandi, the daily capacity of milk plants has increased from 1 lakh litres to 1.3 lakh litres.”

He said, “Another milk processing plant of 50,000 litres capacity is under construction at Duttnagar and 70 per cent work on it has been completed. This plant will facilitate thousands of farmers of Mandi, Kullu and other districts.”