Mother Dairy, an arm of the National Dairy Development Board, is investing over ₹130 crore to add an additional capacity by seven lakh litres per day (LLPD) in the next 12-16 months. Post that, the total capacity of the company would go up to 47 LLPD.

While the upcoming plant at Bhiwandi (Maharashtra) will have a capacity of 5 LLPD, the Nagpur plant will chip in the remaining two lakh litres. In Nagpur, it is going to get a mandate from the government to refurbish an existing facility to start production. “We are going to get the facility on a 30-year lease. We don’t know when will we get it but with or without it, we will enter the Nagpur market by December,” Sandeep Ghosh, Business Head (Milk) of Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Private Limited, said.

“We are targeting to cross the ₹10,000-crore turnover mark by 2017-18. Increase in capacities and expansion to newer markets such as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh would help us take us there,” he said.

The firm hopes to close this financial year with a turnover of ₹8,500 crore as against ₹7,000 crore in 2015-16. About 75 per cent of the revenues come from milk and milk products business, followed by its other fruits, vegetables and frozen food business.

Sandeep Ghosh was here in connection with the launch of its cow milk in the Hyderabad market. The cow milk consumption is very low at 75,000 litres a day in Hyderabad, while the city consumes 20 LLPD.

“It is a small market. But we would like to tap it and expand the market. We are going to bring awareness on the advantages of drinking cow milk versus buffalo milk. We hope to expand the overall cow milk market,” he said.

Milk prices Justifying its move to increase the milk prices, he said the prices have remained static for the last two years, while cost of production has gone up significantly. “We have increased the procurement cost by 10 per cent as the input cost of the farmers has almost doubled,” he said.

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