Karimnagar Dairy bags JICA-financed NPDD project worth Rs 90.70 crore

Karimnagar Dairy has bagged the prestigious National Project for Dairy Development with the financial assistance of JICA

Karimnagar: The Karimnagar Milk Producer Company limited also known as Karimnagar Dairy has bagged the prestigious National Project for Dairy Development (NPDD) with the financial assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).

The project was initially intended to develop the dairy sector in north-eastern states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar , but was extended to Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarkhand and Punjab.

The scheme would be implemented from 2022-2023 to 2025-26 and will continue till 2027-28. In Telangana, the Karimnagar Dairy alone had bagged the project with an outlay of Rs 90.70 crore.

Out of which, Rs 71.52 crore is the loan component and Rs 12.46 crore is grant and the contribution of Karimnagar Dairy is Rs 6.72 crore. The interest rate on loan is lowest at 1.5 per cent and repayable in the 10 years.

Disclosing this to newsmen, TS Planning Board Vice Chairman B Vinod Kumar said that ‘now sky is the limit for the Karimnagar to grow in leaps and bounds’ with the JICA project.

He said the JICA would help the Karimnagar dairy to strengthen the milk procurement institutions (MPI) such as infrastructure, milk testing machines, milk cans, automatic milk collection units, furniture and more.

Besides, the JICA would also assist in milk processing and value addition of milk and milk products, production of cattle feed and mineral mixture plant, setting up of automated curd making plant of 1.5 lakh litres capacity.

It would also support in marketing infrastructure such as walk-in cold store, milk parlours, and of information of technology viz computerization, internet and increase of productivity of milk through fodder development.

He said the JICA would help in ensuring the transparency in procurement operations with IT, increase of milk production with quality feed along with mineral mixture of cattle owners. The Dairy would also launch several new milk and milk products under project to increase its marketing base and benefit the farmers.

He asked the dairy authorities to double the number of the farmers and increase the procurement. He said that he was instrumental in sanctioning the Mega Dairy project worth Rs 70 crore from the union government when he was MP of Karimnagar parliament constituency.

Dairy chairman Ch Rajeshwar Rao, MD P Shankar Reddy, Advisor V Hanumantha Reddy, Marketing manager T Rajashekhar Reddy, Directors M Prabhakar Rao, M Sudhakar Rao and A Narayana Reddy and others were also present. NDDB senior manager (finance) TT Vinagam was instrumental in getting the project sanctioned by the union government and NDDB.