As its operations were hit by outdated machinery, the Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers? Federation Ltd, popularly known as Milkfed, has imported state-of-art-machines from the Netherlands and Germany.
The cooperative has got a new ultra heat treated (UHT) milk machine (Rs 15 crore) for its Chandigarh milk plant, which has a capacity of producing 1.8 crore milk packs per annum. The earlier machine was producing only 7 million packs. The federation has brought a new butter packing machine at Rs 5 crore to be kept at the milk plant in Ludhiana.
There are about 3.6 lakh dairy farmers associated with 11 different milk plants who supply milk to the federation. Out of the 11, three plants at Bathinda, Sangrur and Amritsar are in the red. The federation has a debt burden of Rs 200 crore. The cooperative also plans to revive these plants besides working on capacity enhancement and modernisation of other plants.
Talking to FE, VK Singh, managing director, Milkfed, said, ?To pay off the debt we plan to dispose some of our assets. The federation has five acres of land in Amritsar and around six acres in Bathinda, which will be auctioned shortly. Since there is slump in the real estate market, we will invite bids when the market revives.?
The federation has roped in Rabo India Finance to formulate a Strategic Vision Plan for it. The firm is expected to submit its report in two weeks.
?The firm had submitted a draft report suggesting measures to strengthen the cooperative. It has identified gray areas that need to be worked on. But the draft did not match our expectations and we have asked for a redraft that it can be implemented in the state,? Singh said.
The federation has recorded production of 14 lakh kg of milk per day. But it anticipates it may not be able to achieve its targeted turnover of Rs 1,200 crore in 2008-09.
However, keeping in mind measure being taking to improve efficiency, the cooperative has set a turnover target of Rs 1,400 crore for 2009-10.
