Cabinet nod to cattle breeding, dairy development programme

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs Thursday approved the implementation of the National Programme for Bovine Breeding and Dairy Development (NPBBDD) during the 12th Plan period with an allocation of Rs.1,800 crore, an official statement said.

The spillover activities of the project will be extended to 13th Five Year Plan.

The scheme will have two components - National Programme for Bovine Breeding (NPBB) and National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD).

The first will focus on extension of the field artificial insemination (Al) network, monitoring of Al programme, development and conservation of indigenous breeds and establishment of breeders associations and societies to encourage conservation and development of recognized indigenous breeds.

The NPDD component has been designed to develop infrastructure from the grassroot level by providing financial and technical assistance for dairy development.

The programme will focus on creating infrastructure related to production, procurement, processing and marketing by milk unions or federations and also extension activities including training of farmers.

By end of the of the NPBBDD scheme, 5,000 "MAITRI" units will be established on self sustainable basis to deliver breeding inputs at the farmers' doorstep, and 36,418 dairy cooperative societies will be organised with membership of two million farmers.

The programme will also create milk chilling capacity of 2.8 million litres of milk per day and processing capacity of 3.01 million litres per day.

It will also set in motion specific action to conserve genetic diversity among cattle and buffalo in the country. The programme will also put in place the policy-strategy-programme framework to transform breeding into an economic activity.