Vidya Dairy to impart improved training

Vidya Dairy, a Anand-based Rs 35 crore training and commercial dairy unit, has drawn out plans to impart improved training to its students.

"We want to make our dairy an outstanding training-cum-commercial organization with the state-of-art infrastructure to impart skills to the students to manufacture quality dairy products and to achieve full capacity utilization," H K Desai, managing director, Vidya Dairy, said.

As part of its recent 10th anniversary celebrations, the dairy unveiled its 'Vision 2010'. An interactive session was held at the Vidya Dairy campus in the presence of V Kurien, chairman, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) and board members of the dairy.

Vidya Dairy, a 1,00,000 litre per day facility, was set up by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for the Dairy Science College affiliated to Anand Agricultural University (AAU).

The dairy was commissioned in February 1994, with an objective to provide students an opportunity to have first-hand experience of modern dairy processing and management practices. The students of third year B. Tech (Dairy Technology) programme come to the Vidya Dairy for one-year training.

The dairy wants to give more opportunities to students in key functional areas like in product and processing operations, costing of products, energy consumption, marketing intelligence and inventory control. It aims to improve the quality of inputs on a continuous basis for the benefit of the future of dairy industry.

Vidya Dairy is operating as a commercially viable, self-supporting venture. Its products are marketed through the established distribution systems, assisted by GCMMF.

Vidya Dairy has also been granted the certificate of approval by the Export Inspection Council of India for export of dairy products like Pizza cheese and Emmental Cheese.

So far, Vidya Dairy has trained about 435 students in the areas of milk processing, milk packaging, butter & ghee, ice-cream and cheese manufacturing, quality assurance, services & maintenance, marketing and commercial functions under this programme.