Madhya Pradesh Animal Husbandry Minister Kusum Mehdele here on Monday said the State has earned the fourth position in the country in milk production, surpassing Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, as per the national statistics of the current fiscal.
Mehdele while presenting the one-year report card of her department, said, “For the past three years, the production of milk is increasing considerably in Madhya Pradesh. While the national average was 3.97 per cent in last fiscal, the State’s production rose up to 8.61 per cent.” The Minister said that the department also achieved 11 per cent milk production in 2014-15 surpassing the targeted 9.14 per cent.
Mehdele said with the increase of milk production, the Government was giving special thrust on cooperative-based programmes such as collection of milk, price control and distribution and as a result, the dairy cooperative movement received a notable achievement. “The Animal Husbandry Department contributes 36.41 per cent of Gross Domestic State Production in Agriculture sector in the State, while it is 3.41 per cent on national average,” Mehdele pointed out while adding that the number of animals increased by 40.78 in the State.
She further said despite rising population, the availability of milk per person in Madhya Pradesh was 345 gram, which is more than the national (300 gram) and world (281 gram) average. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had directed to raise the availability to 500 gram per person in next five years, she said.
Mehdele, who is also the Public Health Engineering and Cottage Industries Minister, said that out of 12,675 schemes, work in 1,790 stopped now due to some problems but it would be functional soon. She said that the Government was encouraging Khadi industries and about 177 exhibitions were held in the country and overseas in which about Rs21.41 crore products were sold.