Rajkot district administration offers 100 acres to GCMMF for milk processing plant

The District Land Valuation Committee (DLVC) of Rajkot Thursday finalised a proposal for allotting 100 acres to the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) in the Dhandhani village on the eastern outskirts of the city for a proposed dairy plant. The proposal will now be forwarded to the state government for final approval.

The decision comes months after the dairy federation, which markets dairy products under the brand name Amul, turned down a government offer of 70 acres in the Navagam village, terming the land valuation unaffordable.

At its meeting held Thursday, DLVC, headed by Rajkot district collector Arun Mahesh Babu, finalised parcels of land to be allotted to GCMMF and also recommended the per-square-metre price of land to be charged to the dairy major. “The committee recommended the rate of the land and decided to forward the proposal to SLVC (state land valuation committee) for approval. The state government will take the final call on the rate,” Babu said.

The district administration has offered land to GCMMF in the revenue juisdiction of Dhandhani and Gadhka villages for the latter’s Rs 500 crore milk processing plant. The proposed plant will have a capacity to process 30 lakh litres milk per day (llpd) and will manufacture all milk-based products of Amul.

The decision of the DLVC to allot land in the Dhandhani village on Rajkot-Bhavnagar state highway comes months after GCMMF turned down the offer of the district administration of 70 acres in Navagam-Anandpar villages on the Rajkot-Ahmedabad highway. “The government offered us land in Anandpar at the rate of Rs 7,000 per square metre. We can’t afford to purchase land at such a high rate as, at that rate, the land could have been to the tune of around Rs 400 crore whereas our total budget for the proposed project is around Rs 500 crore. Therefore, we had to say no to that offer,” Valamji Humbal, vice-chairman of GCMMF told The Indian Express, adding, “We are happy to learn that the district-level committee has cleared the proposal. But for us, the most important aspect is the rate at which the government offers us the land.”

GCMMF is the federation of 18 district cooperative milk producers’ unions. It has a capacity to handle 390 lakh litres of milk per day through a chain of 84 milk processing plants spread across the country. However, save one plant in Gandhinagar, the rest of these milk processing plants are owned by member unions. The federation has plans to set up its second plant in Rajkot to cater to dairy farmers of Saurashtra-Kutch regions and the plant will also help save transportation costs for the dairy federation and improve the quality of products, say officers of GCMMF.