Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Friday inaugurated a new Milkfed plant at Chakkar in Balh area of Mandi district. Constructed at a cost of Rs 16.32 crore, the new plant would increase its capacity to over 50,000 litres.

He said that this plant would process milk in a semi-automatic way, which would provide the facility of procurement of more milk from the farmers.

Addressing a public meeting at Chakkar, Thakur said that the HP Milkfed collected about 395 lakh litres of milk from 47,295 farmers of the state during 2021-22 and Rs 110.56 crore was paid to farmers.

He said that milk was one of the most important sources of income for the farmers of the state. Thakur said that during the tenure of the present state government, the purchase of milk has increased by 78 per cent, that is, from 219.00 lakh litres in 2017-18 to 395.39 lakh litres in 2021-22.

The total turnover of Himachal Pradesh Milk Federation in the year 2017-18 was Rs 99 crore, which has increased to Rs 172 crore in 2021-22, he added.

The Chief Minister said that during the present government, an unprecedented increase of Rs 9 per litre was made in the price of milk purchased from farmers, from Rs 22.90 per litre in the year 2017-18 to Rs 31.90 per litre in 2022-23.

He said that the commission of milk societies was increased from 4.5 per cent to 5 per cent and the Milk Federation was paying the best price to the milk producers in the country.

Thakur said that Milkfed today has 11 milk processing plants, one cattle feed plant and one powder plant functioning in the state.

With the commissioning of milk plant Chakkar, Mandi, the daily capacity of milk has increased from 100000 litres to 130000 litres. He said that another milk processing plant of 50,000 litres capacity was under construction in Duttnagar, of which 70 per cent work has been completed.

He said that this plant would facilitate about thousands of farmers from Mandi, Kullu and other districts. The Chief Minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would visit Mandi town tomorrow, which shows his benevolence towards the state and its people.

The Chief Minister announced the opening of ITI in the upper area of Balh and two veterinary hospitals at Balt and Sadhayani provided they fulfil all the norms.