In a move to double farmers' income, the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has sought a Rs 16,027-crore loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for various programmes to develop the dairy sector and meet rising domestic demand for milk and milk products. According to Ministry of Agriculture, the total outlay of the proposal is Rs 20,057 crore. The proposal has been forwarded by Department of Economic Affairs to JICA.
Sources said that out of the total outlay of the proposal, Rs 16,027.07 crore loan has been sought from JICA. The proposal primarily aims to cover additional 1.28 lakh villages, 121.83 lakh additional milk producers, setting up of 1.05 lakh bulk milk coolers at village level creating 524.20 lakh Kg milk per day capacity of milk chilling and creation of milk & milk product processing infrastructure of 76.5 lakh Kg per day capacity. The fund will be routed through National Dairy Development Board for the development of dairy sector.
Besides, the programme will modify old milk and milk product plants created 20-30 years ago under Operation Flood and also create milk and milk products plants for value added products which will benefit 160 lakh existing farmers. The fund will be routed through National Dairy Development Board for the development of dairy sector. JICA officials had visited India during 27th February 27 to March 3, 2017.
India ranks first among the world's milk producing nations since 1998 and has the largest bovine population in the world. The country's milk production has increased to about 155 million tonnes from 17 million tonnes in 1950-51. The milk production during 2015-16 is 155.49 million tonnes About 54 per cent of the milk produced is surplus for marketing in the domestic market, of which only 20.5 per cent is processed by the organised sector being equally shared by co-operatives and private dairy organizations.
"To meet the growing demand, which is estimated to be in the range of 200-210 million tonnes by 2021-22, the country needs to upgrade its infrastructure at the village level particularly for milk procurement and production of high valued milk products," the statement said.