Why in News?

• Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has inaugurated the Dairy Processing & Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF).
• Vast opportunities exist today for dairy entrepreneurs and in order to concretize these opportunities and help double the income of dairy farmers, huge outlay is needed to operationalize the National Action Plan (Vision-2022).

Dairy Processing & Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF):

• As announced in Union Budget 2017-18, the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (DADF) started the DIDF with an outlay of Rs 10881 crore.
• Under this scheme, milk cooperatives will be provided financial assistance of Rs 8004 crore in the form of a loan at 6.5% interest, which will be reimbursed over a period of 10 years.
• Additional milk processing capacity of 126 lakh litre per day, milk drying capacity of 210 MT per day, milk chilling capacity of 140 lakh litre per day shall be created.
• The government has also given a provision of interest subsidy on loans.
• With this scheme, 95, 00,000 farmers in about 50,000 villages will be benefitted.
• In addition to this, many skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers will get employment, directly and indirectly.

Implementing National Dairy Plan Phase-I Scheme:

• Implementation of the World Bank-funded National Dairy Plan Phase-I scheme is also being done by the NDDB through the state government’s cooperative milk organizations/milk federations.
• On the other hand, the implementation of the National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD) is being done by the state’s cooperative/milk federations.
• Under this scheme special assistance was given for the development of cooperative milk committees, incentives to increase the number of milk producers and increase processing and refrigeration capacity.

Revitalizing the RashtriyaGokul Mission:

• The ministry has said that in order to increase production, under the RashtriyaGokul Mission, 10 semen centers have been identified for the production of Sex Sorted Semen for the production of more female animals.
• Also, 20 Embryo Transfer Technology (ETT) centers are being set up for the production of high genetic merit bulls of indigenous bovine breeds.
• Besides, INDUSCHIP has been developed for genomic selection of indigenous breeds and 6000 dairy animals have been genetically evaluated using INDUSCHIP.
• Under the flagship scheme 20 Gokul Grams are also being established.
• Apart from this, for the conservation of indigenous breeds, two National Kamdhenu Breeding Centres, one in Andhra Pradesh at Chintaladevi and other in Madhya Pradesh at Itarsi are being established.

e-Pashuhaat portal:

• The e-Pashuhaat portal is a landmark initiative, launched in 2016.
• It is playing an important role in connecting breeders and farmers.

National Action Plan Vision 2022:

• The Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (DAHDF) is working on a National Action Plan Vision 2022
• Under the plan, suitable provisions are being made to build additional milk processing infrastructure for processing additional volume of milk(expected on account of higher milk production and meeting the increased demand for value-added products).