The Department of Animal Husbandry, Diarying and Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture is drawing up a plan to revamp its flagship scheme to boost milk production.
To begin with, it aims at organising the dairy industry to promote clean milk production (CMP) from the farm gates to the plants, avoiding intermediaries. For this, clean milk collected through bulk milk coolers, or BMCs, should be processed, value added and marketed as “premium milk”, said an official.
Along with CMP, a comprehensive programme on complete eradication of mastitis (cattle disease) is also proposed to be taken up through district cooperatives who could initiate measures like providing assistance to construct cattle sheds, cement flooring of existing cattle sheds, and early detection, etc.
The restructuring of the scheme — infrastructure for quality and clean milk production-2010-11 — is based on recommendations of the Centre of Management Development, Thiruvanathapuram.
Among other changes envisaged are modification of the funding pattern and route of fund allocation, and changing the eligibility criteria for funding.
Currently, the CMP scheme follows a 100 per cent grant-in-aid to states for training members of diary co-operatives on clean milk, supply of detergents, antiseptic solutions and muslin cloth to farmer members, strengthening of existing laboratory facilities, supply of accessories, planning and monitoring, among others. For purchase and installation of BMCs, the funding pattern follows a ratio of 75:25 between the central government and the implementing agency. An amount of Rs 21.2 crore has already been disbursed for CMP under the current Plan period.
Eligibility criteria for the scheme may also be changed by making it more focused so that agencies having a minimum daily procurement of 100,000 litres during the last three years shall get preference. On the other hand, mega agencies with a daily turnover of a million litre or more may be excluded from the scheme.
The recommendation also says the period of implementation of a single project be made three years, while a pre-project survey by an independent agency be made mandatory for the CMP scheme. To add incentives for milk producers, there is a proposal to price milk as per the bacterial quality.
The funding pattern may also be tweaked so as funds should be directly released to the individual entrepreneur and not routed through state governments and state federations. The additional components of marketing, building of BMC and facility for water and electricity would be financed along with this financing as a single package.
The support, according to the proposal, will be continued to a single project until 50 per cent of procurement is covered and thereafter support shall be scaled down and coupled with an interest-free loan under dairy development entrepreneur schemes.
