Govt seeks JICA loan for dairy infrastructure plan

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Union Agriculture Ministry has submitted a proposal for availing loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for ‘Dairying through Cooperatives-National Dairy Infrastructure Plan’’ in line with the mandate of the government to double farmers’ income in next five years.

The total outlay of the proposal is Rs 20,057 crore. The proposal primarily aims to cover additional 1.28 lakh villages, 121.83 lakh additional milk producers, setting up of 1.05 lakh bulk milk coolers at village level creating 524.20 lakh Kg milk per day capacity of milk chilling and creation of milk & milk product processing infrastructure of 76.5 lakh Kg per day capacity. Besides, the programme will modify/expand old milk and milk product plants established 20-30 years ago under Operation Flood and also set up milk and milk products plants for value added products which will benefit 160 lakh existing farmers. The fund will be routed through National Dairy Development Board for the development of dairy sector. The proposal has been forwarded by Department of Economic Affairs to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), according to a PIB release.

JICA mission visited India from February 27 to March 3, 2017. A meeting with the delegation led by  Tatumi Kunitake was held on May 26, 2017, to deliberate on the observations of JICA mission. As per the observations of the mission, the NDDB is working on modifying the proposal with a focus on poverty alleviation.

India ranks first among the world’s milk producing Nations since 1998 and has the largest bovine population in the World. Milk production in India during the period 1950-51 to 2014-15, increased from 17 million tonnes to 146.31 million tonnes. The milk production during 2015-16 was 155.49 million tonnes, according to the PIB release. About 54% of the milk produced in the country is surplus for marketing in the domestic market of which only 20.5% is procured/processed by the organised sector being equally shared by Cooperatives and Private dairy organizations.

To meet the growing demand, which is estimated to be in the range of 200 – 210 million MT by 2021-22, the country needs to upgrade its infrastructure at the village level particularly for milk procurement and production of high valued milk products.