Not yet curdled but getting stale.

As President Ram Nath Kovind visits Ranchi on February 28, he may recall two Rs 18-crore dairy projects whose foundation stones he had laid over two years ago in the state capital. Both have turned into textbook examples of Jharkhand’s bureaucratic red-tapism.

President Kovind had laid foundation stones online of proposed dairy plants at Giridih and Baliguma near Jamshedpur, each with a capacity of 50,000 litres, while attending the Statehood Day event on November 15, 2017, in Ranchi.

Both projects have still not made the transition from files to brickwork.

A source in the state agriculture and animal husbandry department, which oversees the functioning of the state dairy directorate, admitted that funds were yet to be approved by the finance department for the twin dairy projects.

On the proposed dairy projects, he said there was a delay in land transfer in Giridih. “There was no such hassle in Jamshedpur where we (agriculture department) had vacant land. In fact, the finance department did not even need to sanction funds,” he said.

The agriculture department official added that the state’s five-year MoU with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on dairy projects ended last year. “So there’s a bit of uncertainty right now,” he said. “Especially regarding funds for new projects.”

The state dairy director Chitranjan Kumar, however, exuded confidence.

“Yes, the agreement with NDDB ended last year but now with the intervention of the new agriculture minister (Badal Patralekh) the department has decided to revive its MoU with the NDDB. Once the new MoU is final, funds will be released by the state agriculture and animal husbandry department to start the projects,” said Kumar.

Fund transfers assume significance, as construction work would be undertaken by the NDDB only after it receives 30 per cent of the estimated project cost. The NDDB had taken 30 per cent advance while setting up the Hotwar dairy plant in Ranchi.

State agriculture minister Badal Patralekh told The Telegraph that they had decided to renew the agreement with NDDB, which had inked a five-year pact with Jharkhand Milk Federation (which sells milk and milk products under the Medha Dairy brand) in March 2014.

“In those five years, they had increased the state’s milk production from 30,000 litre to 1.25 lakh litre,” the agriculture minister said. “We have set a target of milk production of 5 lakh litre in the next five years, and dairy plants at Jamshedpur and Giridih are essential to meeting our target. Things will move in the right direction soon,” the minister added.

As of now, Jharkhand Milk Federation has a 1.2 lakh-litre capacity processing plant at Hotwar, Ranchi. Three more milk processing centres are operational in Koderma (with a daily capacity of 10,000 litres ) , Latehar (10,000 litres) and Deoghar (50,000 litres).

Work to set up dairy plants at Palamau, Sarath and Sahebganj, each with a capacity of 50,000 litres, has begun.

A JMF survey says the state has a daily milk requirement of nearly 8 lakh litres. Of this, Sudha Dairy (Bihar) meets the demand of around 3 lakh litres. The rest is met by Megha Dairy and private milk firms.