Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate three Banas Dairy projects worth a combined Rs 407.56 crore in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district on Friday and lay the foundation stones for two Bio-CNG plants at Tharad and Radhanpur, as part of his two-day visit to the state on October 30 and 31.
The projects to be inaugurated include the Bharat Bovine Breeding and Research Centre (BBBRC) at Bhildi, built at a cost of Rs 324.77 crore; a French fries processing plant at Sanadar, costing Rs 51.65 crore; and an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) at Palanpur, built for Rs 31.14 crore.
The latter two facilities will be inaugurated virtually. Spread across 127 acres, the BBBRC is intended to serve as a centre of excellence for animal breeding, with a focus on genetic improvement and innovation.
Under the Centre’s ‘Rashtriya Gokul Mission’, Rs 38.83 crore has been sanctioned for the facility, including Rs two crore for donor animals. The centre also receives technical support from the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
The project has been approved under the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) scheme and is financially supported by NABARD.
The ASRS facility in Palanpur has been developed by Banas Dairy for the automated storage and dispatch of ultra-high-temperature (UHT) dairy products.
Its nine-level steel-rack system can accommodate 11,000 pallets and is designed to improve the speed, traceability and efficiency of warehousing operations.
Developed in-house by the dairy, the system has also helped reduce costs, with the additional revenue benefiting its 4.18 lakh milk producers. The facility can be adapted to store other dairy products as well.
The French fries processing plant at Sanadar, in Deodar taluka, has been developed at a cost of Rs 51.65 crore. Work to increase its production capacity from two tonnes to five tonnes per hour began in April this year. Banas Dairy has developed an integrated production chain for French fries, covering plantlet development in laboratories, seed-crop cultivation, potato storage in cold-storage facilities and processing for consumers.
According to the project details, the cooperative has established an integrated system spanning these stages, a model not currently available through any other cooperative organisation or agency in India.
The Prime Minister will also virtually lay the foundation stones for two Bio-CNG plants, one at Tharad with a processing capacity of 75 metric tonnes of cattle dung and another at Radhanpur with a capacity of 100 metric tonnes.
Banas Dairy already operates four plants that process cattle dung into Bio-CNG for vehicle fuel and organic fertiliser.
The two new facilities are expected to expand clean-energy and fertiliser production while providing livestock farmers with an additional source of income through the utilisation of cattle dung.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi and Assembly Speaker and Banas Dairy chairman Shankar Chaudhary will attend the event.
State ministers Jitu Vaghani and Rushikesh Patel, along with Kamlesh Patel, Pravin Mali and Swaroopji Thakor, MPs, MLAs, government officials and milk producers from Banaskantha, are also expected to be present.
Representatives of the dairy cooperative sector will include NDDB chairman Dr Meenesh Shah, the chairman and managing director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), heads of affiliated milk unions and Banas Dairy managing director Sangram Chaudhary.
The projects are part of Banas Dairy’s efforts to expand beyond conventional milk processing into animal breeding, automated dairy logistics, food processing and the conversion of agricultural waste into energy and organic fertiliser.
