AP leases Chittoor Diary to Amul for 99 years, Opposition claims foul

Chittoor: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy laid the foundation stone for the Amul Dairy unit in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.

Chittoor dairy, which ceased operating two decades ago, will now be revived as the AP government has decided to lease it out to Amul for 99 years. An MoU was earlier signed with the Gujarat-based dairy Cooperative Amul to invest up to Rs 385 crore in setting up one of the largest ice-cream manufacturing facility plants in India and produce dairy products in a phased manner.

In the first phase, Rs 150 crore will be invested to get work started and in the next 10 months, milk processing will start with about 1 lakh litres of milk. A butter manufacturing unit, milk powder manufacturing unit along with paneer, yoghurt and sweet manufacturing units will be set up in the next five years.

As many as 5,000 direct jobs will be created and about two lakh people will work indirectly through their outlets and distribution channels.

Speaking at the inauguration, Jagan lashed out at Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu. Jagan recalled the administration of Naidu’s government and said, “As many as 54 entities, many of which were government establishments and corporations that were either closed or sold, suffered adverse impacts by the Chandrababu-led TDP government. The RTC, government hospitals, and government-run schools wouldn’t exist today if Chandrababu Naidu had not lost the elections in 2004. These establishments would have been sold to TDP MP Kasineni Nani, Narayana, Chaitanya and other hospital conglomerates.”

Dairy was shut down in 2002

In 1988, the Chittoor Dairy processed two lakh litres every day and reached the point of processing an average of 2.5 lahk to 3 lakh litres per day between the years 1989 and 1993.

In 1993, Chandrababu Naidu established his own dairy enterprise, Heritage Dairy, in 1992. On August 31, 2002, Chittoor Dairy was abruptly brought to the point of shutdown.

“Farmers and workers are burdened with hundreds of crores in arrears and liquidated on November 27, 2003. We have seen how Chandrababu exerted pressure on local farmers in order to benefit Heritage Dairy. At that time, Amul and Chittoor dairy products competed on an equal footing. However, the biggest cooperative dairy in the world now is Amul Dairy,” said Jagan.

Nara Lokesh questions Jagan's credibility

Hitting back at Jagan’s comments, TDP national secretary Nara Lokesh alleged that Jagan has handed over the Chittoor Dairy to Amul for 99 years for Rs 1 crore per year, while the assets of the dairy are worth more than Rs 700 crores.

“Chittoor Dairy, one of the largest milk hubs in the early 1990s, was shut down due to losses. A house committee in 2005 led by the then late chief minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy concluded that the dairy was shut down due to losses, not because of any political agenda as alleged by the then opposition,” said Lokesh, questioning Jagan’s credibility on the deal with Amul.

The opposition party alleged that surrendering the Chittoor Dairy to Amul is nothing but deliberately hurting Telugu pride. An open letter was released to the chief secretary, KS Jawahar Reddy, expressing concern over surrendering thousands of crores worth of public properties and cooperative dairies to Amul, he said.

The party pointed out that neighbouring states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have deliberately kept Amul at a distance knowing about the company’s deceptive business.