India Plans to Upscale Livestock Production
INDIA - In order to increase livestock and fishery production in the country while providing livelihood opportunities to farmers, India has earmarked over 1000 crore rupees to fund different projects submitted by the states under various programmes run by the union government. The idea is to upscale the sectors in a big way, writes Basudev Mahapatra.So far, proposals worth INR 436.52 crore under the blue revolution programme, envisioned for the growth of fisheries production and aquaculture, have been approved, of which 107.04 crore rupees has been released as first installment of the Central share for immediate implementation by the concerned states.
While the centre has released 129.82 crore rupees to nine states as its share for implementation of various poultry and livestock development programmes under National Livestock Mission, an amount of 164.88 crore rupees has been released for vaccination under the Livestock Health and Disease Control programme.
The union government has released 17.31 crore rupees to support programmes under the National Programme for Bovine Breeding and the Cattle Mission. For approved projects worth 340.77 crore rupees under National Programme for Dairy Development, centre has released 239.95 crore rupees to 17 States.
Under the dairy projects, facilities for processing of 278.6 thousand liters per day (TLPD) and chilling of 93.5 TLPD of milk are created and 977 Dairy Cooperative Societies are formed, said a release issued by the Ministry of Agriculture.
The programmes are intended to double farmers’ income in real sense.
In order to deal with the financial issues these sectors are encountering, Indian government has simplified its foreign direct investment (FDI) policy and has allowed 100 per cent FDI in Animal Husbandry, Pisciculture, Aquaculture and Apiculture sectors.