Ahmedabad, Oct 27 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a two-day Gujarat visit from October 30 during which he will inaugurate and launch development projects of Banas Dairy and attend the National Unity Day parade at the Statue of Unity, the state government said on Tuesday.
Modi will inaugurate a modern cattle breeding and research centre in Bhildi town and an automated storage system at Banas Dairy’s ultra-high-temperature (UHT) plant at Palanpur, headquarters of Banaskantha district, on October 30.
He will attend the National Unity Day celebrations near the Statue of Unity in Ekta Nagar in Narmada district on October 31 on the 151st birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, the government said.
Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi on Tuesday inspected the venue of Modi’s function at Bhildi in Banaskantha district and reviewed preparations for the October 30 event. Assembly Speaker Shankar Chaudhary, who is also Banas Dairy chairman, and officials were present during the inspection.
Modi will inaugurate and lay foundation stones for five major development projects of Banas Dairy (Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd) at Bhildi. One of the projects to be inaugurated is the Bharat Bovine Breeding and Research Centre (BBBRC), spread across 127 acres and built at a cost of Rs 325 crore.
The centre has been established with technical guidance from the National Dairy Development Board and support from the Centre’s Rashtriya Gokul Mission.
According to the government, the facility will use advanced techniques, including in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer, to improve indigenous cattle breeds and increase milk production. It aims to produce 25,000 high-quality embryos annually.
The unit will focus on improving breeds of indigenous cows, including Kankrej, Gir, Sahiwal and Tharparkar, as well as buffalo breeds such as Mehsani, Banni, Jaffrabadi and Murrah. The initiative aims to help farmers obtain higher milk yields from fewer animals amid rising cattle maintenance costs and shrinking fodder availability, it said.
Modi will also inaugurate an automated storage and retrieval system at Banas Dairy’s UHT plant warehouse in Palanpur.
Installed at a cost of Rs 31.14 crore, the system will use robotic shuttles and specialised software to store and retrieve dairy products. The 30,000-square-foot warehouse has steel racks extending up to nine levels and a capacity of 11,000 pallets.
The system is expected to reduce manual intervention, minimise errors and improve the efficiency of storage and order processing.
The UHT plant, established in 2015, processes around 5.5 lakh litres of milk daily and reported revenue of Rs 1,050 crore in 2025-26, the government said.
Established in 1969, Banas Dairy, a leader in Gujarat’s dairy industry, collects an average of 83 lakh litres of milk daily from more than 4.5 lakh livestock farmers through 1,505 village-level cooperative societies, according to the government.
The National Unity Day parade at Ekta Nagar, to be attended by the PM, will feature 19 contingents from the Gujarat police and Central Armed Police Forces, including the CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP and SSB, besides the Assam Rifles, National Security Guard and National Disaster Response Force.
A specially trained dog squad that contributed to anti-Naxal operations will be among the highlights of the parade. A motorcycle rally themed “Fight Against Drugs”, along with police bands, tableaux, cultural performances and a march-past by NCC cadets, will also feature in the celebrations.
The parade will focus on national unity, integrity and the role of security forces, with special emphasis on the themes of a “Naxal-free India” and “Unity in Diversity”, the government said.
(PTI News)
