Dairy entrepreneurship development scheme to cover entire 12th Plan

The cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) has approved modification and continuation of the Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme (DEDS) during the 12th Plan, with an outlay of Rs1,400 crore.

The scheme, which aims at enhancement of milk production, procurement, preservation, transportation, processing and marketing of milk, is expected to generate self-employment opportunities in the dairy sector.

Under the scheme, the minimum entrepreneur contribution (margin) will be -10 per cent of the project cost.

There will be a back-ended capital subsidy of 25 per cent of the project cost for general category and 33.33 per cent for SC/ST farmers. The component-wise subsidy ceiling will be subject to indicative cost arrived at by NABARD from time to time.

The objectives of `DEDS' is to generate self-employment and provide infrastructure for dairy sector, set up modem dairy farms and infrastructure for production of clean milk, encourage heifer calf rearing for conservation and development of good breeding stock, bring structural changes in the unorganised sector (so that initial processing of milk can be taken up at the village level), upgrade traditional technology to handle milk on commercial scale, and provide value addition to milk through processing and production of milk products.

Since inception of the DEDS scheme on 1 September 2010, an amount of Rs552.19 crore has been released as back ended capital subsidy to the beneficiaries for establishment of 1,50,908 dairy units up to 30 September 2013.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) will be the nodal agency for implementation of the scheme.

NABARD will implement the scheme through all scheduled commercial banks, regional rural and urban banks, state cooperative banks, state cooperative agriculture and rural development banks and such other institutions, which are eligible for refinance from NABARD.

The proposals will be sanctioned by the banks as per guidelines of RBI, NABARD and Government of India.

The eligible beneficiaries of the scheme will be agricultural farmers, individual entrepreneurs, self-help groups, dairy cooperative societies, milk unions, milk federation, panchyati raj institutions (PRls) etc.

The scheme will be implemented throughout the country and cover all sections of society including women, the landless and small and marginal farmers in rural and urban areas.

The CCEA also approved the proposal of the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries for implementation of the on-going centrally sponsored scheme of `Livestock Health & Disease Control' (LH & DC) in the 12th Plan with certain modifications and expansion of existing components.

Implementation of the existing components with modifications and expansion of the national control programmes, including addition of one new component on control of classical swine fever under the scheme 'Livestock Health & Disease Control' will involve an investment of Rs3,114.00 crore for entire 12th Plan Period.

This will enable effective tackling the issue of livestock health and strengthening the existing efforts to manage the animal diseases, many of which are of trans-boundary nature with economic and zoonotic potential.

The scheme also envisages up-gradation of state biological production units and disease diagnostic laboratories so as to make them Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) compliant respectively.