Mysuru: Radha Mohan Singh, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, launched operationalisation of the Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) by handing over a cheque of Rs.440 crore as the first instalment to National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) Chairman Dilip Rath at an event held in New Delhi on Friday.

The fund would be distributed to six different projects of which five are from Karnataka, which include Mysore Milk Union (Mysore), Dakshina Kannada Milk Union (Udupi), Kolar-Chikhballarpur Milk Union (Kolar), Karnataka Milk Federation (Ramanagaram) & Karanataka Milk Union (Channarayapatna) in Karnataka and to Ropar Milk Union (Ropar) in Punjab.

NABARD has so far sanctioned Rs.843.81 crore under DIDF for 15 projects with an investment of Rs.1148.58 crore in Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana States. It is expected that sanction shall reach Rs.3,800 crore by the end of the current financial year.

In what can be termed as a major intervention in the dairy sector after the white revolution of the 70s, GoI has set up the Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) in National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) with a corpus of Rs.8,004 crore to support modernisation of the dairy sector in the country. This initiative is expected to achieve an investment of Rs.10,000 crore in the dairy sector in three years, namely, 2017-18 to 2019-20.

India is the largest producer of milk in the world with production of 176.35 million tonnes. The vision 2022 document has pegged the country’s estimated milk production at 254.5 million tonnes. DIDF will create the modern infrastructure to process the augmented production. Funds will be accessed by viable milk unions and dairy federations through National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).

Maintaining that the dairy activity has been growing fast, Agriculture Minister said that per capita milk availability has gone substantially up to 377 gram per day. He reiterated that only more value addition in dairy sector will ensure more income to the dairy farmers. DIDF will help about 95 lakh dairy farmers across 50,000 villages. “Gaon, Garib and Kisan are the focus of the present Government. In order to ensure doubling of income of farmers, animal husbandry plays an important role and there the DDIF will be crucial,” he said.

Shiv Pratap Shukla, Minister of State for Finance, said that like the success in Jan Dhan Yojana which enabled 32.50 crore bank accounts for poor people, DIDF will also be a huge success.

Krishna Raj, Minister of State for Agriculture, said: “women in the villages are engaged in dairy activities. By giving optimum prices for the milk, DIDF will help them to increase income.”

Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, Chairman, NABARD, also spoke during the programme.