New Delhi, June 22 (KNN) A new scheme titled ‘Supporting Dairy Cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organizations engaged in dairy activities’ from 2016-17 has been approved with a corpus fund of Rs 300 Crore to be used for providing soft loan for working capital, said Giriraj Singh, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, he said that the schemes aims to enable State Dairy Cooperative Federations to provide a stable market access to farmers,

The scheme is being implemented by National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) with the objectives to assist the State Dairy Cooperative Federations by providing soft working capital loan to tide over the crisis on account of severely adverse market conditions or natural calamities; to provide stable market access to the dairy farmers and to enable State Cooperative Dairy Federations to continue to make timely payment of dues to the farmers, he added.

In addition, the scheme enables the cooperatives to procure milk at a remunerative price from the farmers, even during the flush season, said Singh.

National Program for Dairy Development (NPDD); Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme (DEDS); National Dairy Plan-I (NDP-I); Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) were the other initiatives undertaken by the Department for dairy development, he mentioned. (KNN/K)