Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd is planning to install solar power plant at its dairy in Mangaluru. This will help meet the requirement of the dairy partially.

In an informal chat with presspersons on the sidelines of a programme to celebrate ‘World Milk Day’ in Mangaluru on Wednesday, Raviraj Hegde, president of Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd, said the cooperative union has made a provision of ₹2 crore for the establishment of a solar power plant at its dairy in Mangaluru.

BV Satyanarayana, Managing Director of the union, said the cooperative would install a 125-kW solar power plant on its dairy premises in Mangaluru. He said the process would be finalised in six months.

Milk in flexi pack On the other plans of the cooperative, Hegde said that the cooperative has launched milk in flexi packs under the brand name ‘Trupti’. This milk has a shelf-life of around 90 days.

Though ‘Trupti’ was launched in April, it was under observation all these days to ensure the quality parameters. The product will be released to the market in a week, he said.

The Mangaluru dairy of Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union has a capacity to produce 60,000 litres a day of milk in flexi pack.

Hegde said the Milk Producers’ Union procures around 4 lakh litres of milk a day from around 600 milk cooperative societies in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. Of the 600 milk cooperative societies, nearly 50 societies procure more than 1000 litres of milk a day from farmers, he said.

On an average, the Milk Producers’ Union pays ₹33 for a litre of milk procured from farmers.

Published on June 2, 2016