Goodricke to seek RBI nod for dairy foray

KOLKATA: Tea major Goodricke Group plans to foray into dairy business and will seek the Reserve Bank of India's approval for this soon.

"We have licences only to grow tea and produce tea-related products. For diversification, we have to take permission from the RBI," Goodricke Group managing director and CEO A N Singh told reporters on the sidelines of the company's AGM here today.

The commercial dairy venture would come up in Jalpaiguri district's Lakhipara, near the company's pilot project, with a production target of 10,000 litres milk per day.

"The project will be on a large scale," Singh said, adding that the company is likely to seek permission from the apex bank sometime after June this year, when the two-year pilot project is completed.

"It has given us confidence that hybrid cows, which are high milking, can survive in the Jalpaiguri climate," he said.

He said he was expecting the RBI approval to come by the end of 2012.

Meanwhile, the company said it was open to acquisition of tea gardens in Assam, provided the gardens were of a size between 600 and 1000 hectares.