Rutam Vora

In a big thrust for the dairy and animal husbandry sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the doubling of milk processing capacities by 2025 and a resolve to eradicate infectious diseases such as foot and mouth disease (FMD).

The milk processing capacity target has been set at 108 million tonnes per day by 2025, from the current 53.5 mt.

RS Sodhi, Managing Director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), the nation’s largest milk player and the marketer of Amul, welcomed the move. “That’s an excellent move. It will bring more investments in dairy sector which will increase farmers bargaining power to get better prices for their produce. If done properly it will create 80 lacs jobs in Rural India and 16 lacs jobs in Urban India.”

NDDB chairman, Dilip Rath also welcomed the budget announcements and stated that the measures will help sustain growth of milk production by more than 6 per cent. Welcoming the move on doubling of milk processing capacities, Rath said, “Most of the dairy processing plants in the country were established during Operation Flood which need to be modernised and refurbished to make it more efficient.” The Minister's announcement comes as a validation to Niti Aayog’s projections of India’s milk production to touch 330 million tonnes by 2033.

Elimination of FMD and Brucellosis

The FM also emphasise on government's intent to completely eliminate animal diseases for a better health of the cattle thereby helping farmers from massive economic losses caused from animal diseases, which reduced livestock productivity. NDDB estimates show dairy economy suffers a loss of about Rs. 20,000 crore per year due to FMD alone.

“Our government intents to eliminate Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis in cattle and also PPR in sheep and goat by 2025. We are confident that it will be completely eliminated by then,” Sitharaman stated in her Saturday's Budget Speech in the Parliament.

Rath further stated that the government's intent, “..would require effective implementation to benefit millions of small and”marginal dairy farmers including, manufacturing and sourcing of quality vaccines, robust testing methods and facilities, introduction of robust systems and processes, training of personal at all levels, capturing of vaccination data under INAPH, a software developed by NDDB- a National Database.

Also, the move on doubling Artificial insemination Target and elimination of FMD and Brucellosis by 2025 is set to increase the productivity and reduce the cost of production. “The announcement to increase the coverage of artificial insemination from the present 30 per cent to 70 per cent in the Union Budget 2020-21 is a significant step in improving the productivity of our milch animals and milk production thereby improving the livelihoods of our dairy farmers,” the NDDB Chief said.

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