Gandhinagar, Apr 19 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the progress made by the Banas dairy in Gujarat's Banaskantha district is a right move towards 'local to global'.

He is currently on a three-day visit to his home state since Monday to inaugurate a slew of development projects.

On Tuesday morning, he inaugurated the Banas dairy complex at Deodar, built at a cost of around Rs 610 crore.

While addressing around one lakh people, the Prime Minister said: "This is probably the first time that I am being blessed by around 2 lakh mothers and sisters. During the 1 to 2 hours that I spent in the plant, I got to meet agro producers and plant officials and was very impressed by their work. The Banas dairy plant is the best example of women empowerment".

The project also includes a potato processing plant and a community radio station.

The PM also opened virtually, a project for expansion of a cheese and whey plants at Palanpur besides an organic fertiliser and bio-CNG plant at Dama.

He laid the foundation stone for four new biogas plants at Khimana, Ratanpur Bhildi, Radhanpur and Thawar virtually. "The Banas dairy project has established that to double the farmers' income, not only milk, but other products can also be useful. This is a right step of today's Bharat from going local to global. Despite, being a water scarce region, Banaskantha has shown that through the Kankrej breed cow, Mehsana buffalo and potatoes, it can be a model to be replicated," he concluded.