Tamil Nadu Minister for Milk and Dairy Development SM Nasar on Wednesday announced that steps will be taken to sell Aavin products at all ration shops so that over two crore families with family cards can benefit.
Replying to the discussion on the demands for grants for his department in the Assembly, the minister also announced that Aavin will introduce 10 new products this year — Aavin healthmix, cold coffee, cheddar cheese, jackfruit icecream, butter, basundhi, Aavin milk biscuit, baked yoghurt, Aavin butter murukku and white chocolate.
Further, he said a new dairy plant will be set up at Padalur in Cuddalore at Rs 150 crore to produce nutritional milk powder, non-fat milk powder and butter. This will help milk producers in Tiruchy, Ariyalur, Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Pudukottai, Sivaganga, Thanjavur and other districts who produce 72 lakh litres of milk per day.
A new dairy farm will be established at Acharapakkam in Chengapattu, at Rs 71.22 crore to handle 2 lakh litres of milk for the people living in Chennai’s suburban areas, said Nasar, adding 125 bulk milk coolers would be established at district cooperative milk producers’ societies at Rs 15 crore.
Further, biogas plants would be given to 120 women milk producers in the Nilgiris district as part of a pilot project which will be implemented at Rs 1 crore. He also added a Unified Milk Cost Payment will be introduced to avoid any delay in the disbursal of payment to milk producers.
A detailed project report will be obtained to set up a dairy farm and an Aavin plant in Karaikudi. A committee will be formed to study the representations of workers of the primary milk cooperative societies regarding their pay.
The onion mission
TN will implement an Onion Cultivation Mission (OCM) at `40 crore in this financial year to ensure an uninterrupted supply of onions. Under this scheme, input subsidy of `8,000 per acre would be given to farmers for 27,170 hectares.
