The Centre on Wednesday decided to revise and realign schemes of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, and implement them as part of the special livestock sector package over the next five years starting from 2021-22 fiscal, in a bid to leverage an investment of Rs 54,618 crore.
A decision in this regard was taken in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"This package envisages the central government's support amounting to Rs 9,800 crore over the duration of five years for leveraging a total investment of Rs 54,618 crore for five years," according to an official statement.
The schemes have been realigned and revised in order to further boost growth in the livestock sector and thereby making animal husbandry more remunerative to the 10 crore farmers engaged in this sector, it said.
As per the revision, all the schemes of the department will be merged into three broad categories.
The first category will be the Development Programmes, which include Rashtriya Gokul Mission, National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD), National Livestock Mission (NLM) and Livestock Census and Integrated Sample Survey (LC & ISS) as sub-schemes.
The second category is the Disease Control programme renamed as Livestock Health and Disease Control (LH & DC), which includes the current LH & DC scheme and the National Animal Disease Control Programme (NADCP).
The third category is the Infrastructure Development Fund, wherein the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development fund (AHIDF) and the Dairy Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) are merged. The current scheme to support dairy cooperatives and farmer producer organisations engaged in dairy activities is also included in this third category.
On the impact of the revision in the schemes, the government said the Rashtriya Gokul Mission will help in the development and conservation of indigenous breeds and would also contribute in improving the economic condition of the rural poor.
The NPDD scheme is targeted towards installation of about 8,900 bulk milk coolers, thus providing benefit to over eight lakh milk producers, and 20 lakh litres per day milk will be additionally procured.
Under the NPDD, financial assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will be availed, thus strengthening and creating fresh infrastructure in 4,500 villages, the statement added.
