Minister for Marketing, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry Mopidevi Venkataramana said on Saturday that the government had taken a bold decision to increase the procurement price of milk by ₹4 a litre to provide remunerative price to the dairy farmers though the increase entailed a burden of ₹220 crore on the exchequer.
He pointed out that nine lakh families were dependent on the dairy sector, and they had been suffering a substantial loss due to lack of remunerative price for several years.
‘Small farmers will gain’
Addressing the media after assuming office at the Secretariat, Mr. Venkataramana said Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had promised during his Praja Sankalpa Yatra to increase the procurement price of milk and he stood by it.
The price hike would be especially beneficial to the small and marginal farmers, he stated.
The government also resolved to pay an allowance of ₹10,000 per family during the annual ban on fishing during the breeding season, he said. It used to be a maximum of ₹4,000 earlier.
Fishing jetties
Besides, the government decided to modernise the fishing jetties across the State and give an ex gratia of ₹10 lakh to the kin of fishermen killed in accidents.
A market stabilisation fund of ₹3,000 crore was being created to alleviate the plight of the farmers, the Minister said.
