Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah attended the foundation-stone laying ceremony of Amul's world's largest curd (dahi) manufacturing plant in Kolkata, West Bengal, on Sunday, July 19, 2026, joining the event live as the landmark cooperative dairy project broke ground in eastern India.

Shah posted on X in both Hindi and Bengali, signalling the ceremony live — 'पश्चिम बंगाल के कोलकाता में अमूल के विश्व के सबसे बड़े दही प्लांट के शिलान्यास समारोह से लाइव' ('Live from the foundation-stone ceremony of Amul's world's largest dahi plant in Kolkata, West Bengal') — underscoring the political and symbolic weight attached to the event.

Context

The Kolkata facility, once operational, is projected to be the single largest curd-production plant in the world under the Amul brand, which is owned by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF). The choice of West Bengal — a state governed by the Trinamool Congress and traditionally outside Gujarat's dairy cooperative orbit — is significant. It marks a deliberate geographic expansion of the Amul model into eastern India's large and largely unorganised dairy market.

Shah's presence as Minister of Cooperation — the portfolio that directly oversees India's cooperative sector — lends the event a clear policy dimension beyond a routine corporate milestone.

Policy Backdrop

The Ministry of Cooperation was carved out as a standalone ministry in July 2021, with Shah at its helm, specifically to give institutional momentum to India's cooperative movement — of which Amul is the most celebrated example. Since then, the ministry has pushed to replicate Gujarat-style dairy cooperatives in states where milk procurement remains fragmented and farmer returns are low.

The National Dairy Development Board has run parallel expansion programmes aimed at linking farmers in eastern and northeastern states directly to organised national brands. The Kolkata plant fits squarely within this policy arc, potentially enabling West Bengal's dairy farmers to supply milk to a nationally recognised cooperative rather than selling through informal intermediaries.

Stakeholders and Impact

The most direct beneficiaries of the plant would be dairy farmers and cooperative societies across West Bengal, who stand to gain access to a structured, price-stable procurement system. For urban consumers in Kolkata and surrounding eastern Indian markets, the plant could improve the availability and shelf-life reliability of packaged curd.

For the central government, the project represents a visible demonstration that cooperative dairy infrastructure — long associated with western India — can be scaled nationally. Shah's bilingual post in Hindi and Bengali also reflects an outreach to Bengali-speaking audiences, notable given the BJP's continued electoral focus on West Bengal.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to the construction timeline of the Kolkata plant and the milk procurement agreements that Amul will need to negotiate with local cooperative societies in West Bengal. Any additional announcements of Amul processing facilities in eastern or northeastern states would reinforce the pattern of cooperative expansion the Ministry of Cooperation has championed since 2021. The project's progress will also be watched as a test of whether national cooperative brands can deepen roots in states where regional political dynamics have historically complicated Centre-led initiatives.