The Medak district administration is aiming at increasing the milk production in order to cater to the needs of twin cities by procuring about two lakh litres of milk. On the lines of water grid, the milk grid was proposed and initiated at Gajwel and Siddipet with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) taking the lead role. In addition, Agriculture department and Lead Bank are coordinating in identifying the beneficiaries and extending required support to them.
According to officials, Gajwel Milk Grid is an area based scheme and aimed at providing supplementary income and self employment opportunities to dairy farmers in the constituency limits. While the total milk production in constituency was 58,000 litres per day, the marketable surplus stands at 23,000 litres. Total milk procurement by Telangana State Diary Development Cooperative Federation (TSDDCF) stands at 16,000 litres per day.
It was also indentified that the availability of fodder is not optimum in the area and needs augmentation.
The project envisages development of fodder plots by individual farmers/ beneficiaries. Hence, the concentrated feed will be supplied by the federation to milk pourers on credit basis and the amount would be deducted from the milk bills. Improved variety of fodder seeds like maize, lucerne, stylo will be supplied to farmers on 75 per cent subsidy.
Essential infrastructure like milk testing equipments, cans, lids and chemicals will be supplied in accordance with the proposed expansion of plant.
We are planning to increase the milk procurement of 1 lakh litres per day. Murrah breeding bulls are being supplied to the villages where artificial insemination facilities are not available. In a similar way we have proposed to increase procurement at Siddipet also to 1 lakh litres, G. Ramesh Kumar, AGM, NABARD, told The Hindu. A tripartite agreement would be signed among officials of bank, dairy development and farmer/ producer for supplying/ marketing of milk to the federation.
