Punjab govt announces incentives for agri diversification

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today announced a slew of incentives to give a boost to government's ambitious programme of agriculture diversification.
The incentives include bringing the power tariff rates applicable in dairy, fishery, goatry and piggery at par with agriculture sector and advancing soft loans to the beneficiaries of goatry and piggery at interest rates equivalent to dairy sector.
It also includes stabilising the milk purchase rate and making it uniform across the state besides introducing single window for the promotion of allied farm sector.
Presiding over a series of meetings with the progressive dairy farmers, piggery, goatry and fishery beneficiaries here, the Chief Minister said that the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited would henceforth charge farm tariff from dairy farms as against the commercial rate being charged at present.

He said that the eligible beneficiaries of allied farming sector would get the power bills on the reduced tariff from existing Rs 7.75 per unit to Rs 4.57 per unit from the coming cycle.
Acceding to a major demand of the dairy farmers, the Chief Minister announced that milk cooperative--Milkfed, Punjab, would pay uniform procurement price of milk to the milk producers throughout the year across the state, according to an official release here.

Badal said that the loss incurred, if any by Milkfed, in the implementation of the decision would be taken care of by the government.
Likewise, Badal said that the state government would provide 50 per cent subsidy on all the components of two to six local/domestic cow breeds dairy units for the promotion of indigenous breeds.

The Chief Minister also told the farmers that he has been actively pursuing with the Centre the matter of lowering the fat content in the standards fixed for cow milk for Punjab from 4.0 per cent to 3.5 per cent and thereby to establish parity with other States of the country.