Just about a year after the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced 50 per cent subsidies for women entrepreneurs in dairy farming, the Punjab Government has started dragging its feet on dairy subsidies.
Due to modification in subsidy policy under the Centre’s Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), the Punjab government is now finding it tough to take the program ahead.
Due to paucity of funds, the Punjab Dairy Development Board (PDDB) has stopped accepting new proposals from the farmers who wish to start dairy farming with financial aid from the government.
Punjab government, only the previous year, had propagated extensively that diary sector will be given special impetus to bring diversification in the agriculture sector.
The state had prepared a number of subsidy proposals for dairy farmers including 50 percent subsidy on the purchase of machines to milk cattle, single fodder harvest machine, cold chain and biogas plant, among others.
Apart from 50 percent subsidy to women entrepreneurs on new projects, male entrepreneurs were also being given good offers of subsidy for expanding their dairy farming.
However, the modifications brought by the Centre in RKVY have forced the PDDB not to accept new applications for 50 percent subsidy.
Available information suggests that till the previous year, the Centre was supporting 100 percent subsidy burden for dairy farming under RKVY. The Board was giving 50 percent subsidies under different heads to new dairy entrepreneurs. But from this fiscal, the Centre has put half of the burden of subsidy under RKVY on the state governments.
It has been learnt that the Centre has asked the state to bring the subsidy structure under RKVY at par with Dairy Entrepreneurship Development (DED) scheme, being run by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
Under DED scheme, 25 percent subsidy for general class and 33 percent for scheduled classes is given.
Sources said that under the new provisions, Centre will give 50 percent matching grant after the state releases its 50 percent share of subsidy.
Sources in the department said that Board has not been accepting new proposals for subsidy for quite some time. Even the Board is finding it tough to clear the backlog of releasing subsidies that were approved in 2014-15.
The Board is yet to receive a sum of Rs 17 crore from the state exchequer for disbursing the subsidy amount to the beneficiaries. The Board had sent proposals of subsidies for an amount of 43 crores, out of which 17 crores are yet to be disbursed to the beneficiaries.
PDDB Additional Chief Executive Officer Inderjeet Singh said that the proposals are not being accepted as the Board wishes to clear the backlog first.
“The new proposals would be accepted once the pending cases of subsidies are done with,” he said.
Singh claimed that the Board has raised the issue of matching grant for disbursal of subsidies with the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and he has assured of getting the state’s share of subsidies.