Lucknow, Sep 2 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Tuesday took some major decisions to strengthen and support the dairy sector and okayed a proposal to set up a cow milk plant in Kannauj, the parliamentary constituency of Dimple Yadav, wife of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Other than this, a cheese plant in Meerut, an ice-cream plant in Bareilly, a modern flavoured milk plant in Lucknow have also been proposed. A decision was also taken that Parag, the state-owned milk brand, will ensure its products have a longer shelf life so that they could be marketed in far-flung areas and also exported to other states.

The cabinet also okayed the proposal of introducing the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) in the Parag Cooperative Dairy Federation (PCDF) aimed at downsizing the staff. In principle approval was also granted to providing a Rs.1,600 crore package to strengthen and revive the PCDF in first phase.

A decision was also taken to establish modern greenfield automatic plants with a daily capacity of 21 lakh litres of milk. Of these plants, a new milk plant will come up in Mau in eastern Uttar Pradesh.