Visakha Dairy to set up 50 bulk coolers by '06

Co-operative dairy to invest close to Rs 8 crore on expansion

Visakha Co-operative Dairy has decided to invest up to Rs 8 crore over the next 15 months to set up bulk coolers across the four coastal districts from Srikakulam to East Godavari in the state.

"At present, we have 60 bulk coolers across the four coastal districts and on an average, we are procuring 2.98 lakh litres of milk a day. In a bid to reach the procurement level of up to 5 lakh litres a day, we have decided to set up another 50 bulk coolers by March 2006 with an investment of between Rs 7 and Rs 8 crore," N V Venkata Rao, managing director of Visakha Co-operative Dairy, told Business Standard.

"The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) is making arrangements to sell Visakha Dairy's milk in Kolkata from December 16 under its 'Amul' brand. For this, Visakha Dairy has agreed to supply 50,000 litres of milk a day to GCMMF from December 13. Visakha Dairy has already been supplying 10,000-15,000 litres of Tetra milk packets to GCMMF under the 'Amul' brand. Besides GCMMF, we are also supplying around 50,000-60,000 litres of milk to Kolkata-based Mother Dairy, Metro Dairy and Tekkar Dairy on a daily basis," he said.

Visakha dairy is also selling close to 27,000 litres of milk daily in the Hyderabad market, he added.

Venkata Rao said that the dairy is slowly increasing its milk procurement in the East Godavari district also.

"Last fiscal, our daily milk procurement was nearly 55,000 litres a day on an average, whereas it increased to 80,000 litres a day this fiscal. We are going to add another six bulk coolers to the existing 10 coolers. Once this expansion is completed, our milk procurement will cross one lakh litres a day in East Godavari," he said.

Visakha Diary has seen an increase of Rs 7 crore in its turnover in the first half of the current fiscal as compared to last fiscal's corresponding period.

"In the current fiscal, we have not increased our price. Instead, we have enhanced the milk procurement price by 30 paise per litre. Despite enhancing the milk procurement price, we achieved a turnover of Rs 110 crore in the first half of the current fiscal, as compared to Rs 103 crore for the corresponding period last fiscal. The reason for the upward trend in our turnover was due to our increasing volumes. Last fiscal, we procured 2.68 lakh litres milk a day on an average while the milk procurement was 2.98 lakh litres in the current fiscal," Venkata Rao said.