Under the crop diversification policy, the Punjab Government has announced to extend 25 to 33 percent subsidy to the unemployed youth for setting up dairy farming units, for producing milk products, for purchasing milch animals and for purchasing milking machines.
“Under the comprehensive policy, the Government has decided to provide self employment to 500 unemployed youth in every district by encouraging them to set up dairy farming units,” said the state Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Wednesday.
He said that concerted efforts are being also made to enable the farmers to fetch competitive price of milk to provide enabling atmosphere for the marketing of milk in other states.
Sidhu said that to minimize economic burden upon already debt-ridden farming community, the government has decided to provide 25-33 percent subsidy to the young budding farmers to set up dairy units.
Under this policy, the Department has also chalked out a training programme at each Diary Training and Extension Centres to provide latest technical training to the young farmers to make the dairy farming a self sustaining and profitable profession.
The state Dairy Development Board director Inderjit Singh said that in the first phase, training would be imparted at Dairy Training and Extension Centre in Bija (ludhiana), Chitamali (Ropar), Gill (Moga), Abul Khurana (Sri Muktsar Sahib), Sardulgarh (Mansa), Phagwara (Kapurthala) and at Verka (Amritsar).
He said that for selection of candidates, counseling of Class X pass candidates would be held at concerned Dairy Training and Extension Centre on May 14 at 10 am. Any candidate of the age between 18 to 45 years, having dairy farm of minimum five milch cattle, can apply for training, he said.