MANGALORE: Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Ltd. (DKMUL) has made a foray into producing and marketing flavoured milk at its Kulshekar plant here. The union is at present marketing trial runs and will independently market the product after a month, B. Niranjan, president of the union, said. The plant has been upgraded at a cost of Rs. 50 lakh for the purpose.

Addressing presspersons here on Friday, Mr. Niranjan said at present the Karnataka Milk Federation was the sole entity producing and marketing this product through its 13 constituent milk unions in the State. He said even DKMUL was procuring the product from KMF and selling it locally. Once the trial runs were successful, DKMUL would independently market the product from Kasargod up to Karwar, he added.

Listing out projects of the union, Mr. Niranjan said a draft plan has been prepared to set up a milk-packaging unit at Puttur at an estimated cost of Rs. 1 crore. The union could process and package nearly 60,000 litres of milk at the proposed unit, he said and added that plans had been drawn up to start mobile vans in Mangalore and Udupi to market various products produced by the cooperative.

The DKMUL had initiated the process of expanding the capacity of Mangalore dairy to handle 2 lakh litres of milk a day using financial assistance of Rs. 6.55 crore given by the National Dairy Development Board. Mr. Niranjan said the dairy had enhanced its milk-handling capacity from 1.4 lakh litres a day in September 2004 to 2 lakh litres.

The union had taken steps to set up 55 bulk milk coolers and 119 automatic milk collection centres in a phased manner at an estimated cost of Rs. 6.17 crore. Of the 55 bulk milk coolers proposed, 29 would be set up under a Government of India initiative, Mr. Niranjan said .

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