Varun Beverages is setting up a soft drinks unit at Pathankot in Gurdaspur district of Punjab. The unit is a first integrated dairy, juice and carbonated soft drinks plant in the country, which will use fresh milk from local milk farmers, juice from citrus fruits mostly grown in Punjab under PepsiCo’s guidance.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed three years ago during Progressive Punjab Investors Summit 2015. However, the project received clearance from the state government in 2018.
The plant holds potential to provide direct and indirect employment to nearly 2,000 people. The recent update with Projects Today on the soft drink unit indicates that at present machinery installation work on the project was underway.
The plant being developed on 41.4 acre at a cost Rs 800 crore has been pre-scheduled for completion in March 2019 instead of July 2019.