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Manipal: The Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union will construct new unit structure at Uppoor, near Kallianpur, Udupi.

Speaking with media persons at Manipal DKCMPU office, Raviraj Hegde President of the Union said that the structure to the 5.90 acres site at Uppoor which huge one and other facilities to accommodate all the production functions would be come up in the new Uppoor site.

Raviraj Hegde said that the move is being taken in the backdrop of non availability of sufficient space to take up the production of all milk produce in Manipal dairy. A huge structure is taken up at a cost of Rs. 92 crore which will be expected to get ready by December, 2018.

The unit in Udupi accumulates nearly 1.87 lakh litres of milk a day with the involvement of more than 326 cooperative milk producers’ union. There is market for 1.20 lakh litres of milk on an average per day in Udupi. There are 35,680 active members who are a fraction of the milk producing associations. The unit was set up in 1974  under the title Canara Milk Union by T A Pai, inspired by Amul Founder Dr. Varghese Kurain. Inititally 3000 liters of milk was collected every day. In 1985, it was merged into the Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union. By 1986 the amount of milk collected was 4,458 literes, he said.

The processing capacity of the dairy was initially 20,000 litres. In 1997 the capacity was increased to 30,000. In 2004 it was increased to 60,000 litres and in 2011 the capacity increased to 80,000 litres.

In Manipal presently milk processing and packaging is done and curds and other products are still produced in Mangaluru dairy. Around the process incurs Rs 5 lakh expenses every month. The maximum processing power used during the milk collection is 190% and the capacity would be hiked to 239% by 2021/22, he said.

He said that as against the demand for 15 metric tons of butter, only 4-5 metric tons of butter is produced. Most of the fat protein content of the milk is not extracted as the milk powder is used for the Ksheera Bhagya programme where the milk prepared would retain the fat and protein contents.

He also said that up to 65% farmers are already covered until January under the Aadhar link program. The remaining 35% would be covered shortly. The subsidy amount to the farmers is sometimes delayed owing to the delay in linking of Aadhar number to bank accounts.

Hegde said that the plans have also been chalked out to convert the Manipal dairy building into an ice-cream manufacturing unit. The programme to lay the foundation stone to the new structure would be inaugurated by Pramod Minister, district in-charge minister on 16^th April, 2017. Yeddyurappa former chief minister would lay the foundation stone to the new structure at Uppoor. The Administrative structure will be inaugurated by Shobha Karandleje local MP.

Directors Kaup Divakar Shetty, B. Niranjan, K. Sitharam Rai, Smt Janaki Hande and other directors were present.