Special Livestock Sector Package Implementation Approved

· Government approves implementation of a special livestock sector package consisting of several activities by revising and realigning various components of Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying schemes for next 5 years starting from 2021-22

· The package envisages Central Government’s support amounting to Rs.9800 crore over duration of 5 years for leveraging total investment of Rs.54,618 crore for 5 years

· The initiative aims to boost growth in livestock sector and thereby making animal husbandry more remunerative to 10 crore farmers engaged in Animal Husbandry Sector

In order to further boost growth in livestock sector and thereby making animal husbandry more remunerative to 10 crore farmers engaged in Animal Husbandry Sector, the Government has approved implementation of a Special Livestock Sector Package consisting of several activities by revising and realigning various components of Government of India’s schemes for next 5 years starting from 2021-22. This package envisages Central Government’s support amounting to Rs.9800 crore over duration of 5 years for leveraging total investment of Rs. 54,618 crore for 5 years.

As per this, all the schemes of the Department will be merged into three broad categories as Development Programmes which includes 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, Disease Control programme renamed as Livestock Health and Disease Control (LH & DC) which includes the present Livestock Health and Disease Control (LH & DC) scheme and National Animal Disease Control Programme (NADCP) and Infrastructure Development Fund wherein, the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development fund (AHIDF) and the Dairy Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) are merged and the present scheme for support to Dairy Cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organizations engaged in Dairy activities is also included in this third category.

The revised and realigned scheme component related to Rashtriya Gokul Mission is crucial for development and conservation of indigenous breeds and would also contribute in improving the economic condition of the rural poor as most of the low producing indigenous breeds are with small and marginal farmers and landless labourers. The aim of RGM would be to deliver quality breeding inputs at the farmers’ doorstep. Implementation of RGM is crucial to enhance milk production and productivity of bovines, thereby making dairying more remunerative to poor farmers of the country

The realigned National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD) will have two components. Component ‘A’ of National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD) will be implemented with emphasis on milk procurement, processing, marketing and quality of milk and milk products. The scheme is targeted towards installation of about 8900 bulk milk coolers, which is likely to cover about 26,700 villages and thus providing benefit to more than 8 lakh milk producers and 20 LLPD milk will be additionally procured. Component ‘B’ of NPDD will avail financial assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as per project agreement already signed with them and will create strengthened or fresh infrastructure in 4500 villages, 8.96 LLPD chilling and 7 LLPD processing capacity with incremental procurement of about 14.20 LLPD from 1.5 Lakh additional milk producers.

The Livestock Sector in our country, has been growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.15% (at constant prices) from 2014-15 to 2019-20. This CAGR is higher than other sectors like manufacturing sector, which has shown 6.15%, Agriculture (Crop) sector which shown 1.95% and services sector with 7.7% for similar period. Similarly, the Poultry sector is also growing at (CAGR constant prices) of 10.5% and playing immense role in livelihood creation in the rural economy. Further, as per the estimates of Central Statistical Office (CSO) for sector wise Gross Value Added (GVA) of Agriculture and allied sector, the percentage contribution of livestock sector as a percentage of total crop and livestock sector has increased from 28% (2014-15) to 34% (2019-20). Total value of production of only dairy sector was Rs.7,72,705 crore for 2018-19 while total value of production of wheat and paddy together was Rs.4,99,653 crore. The Dairy sector has been growing consistently with milk production increasing from 22 million MT in 1970 to 198 million MT in 2019-20.