The Government of Assam and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today at Srimanta Sankardeva International Auditorium in Guwahati. The aim is to develop the dairy sector in the state, specially in the rural regions.
The event saw the presence of Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Minister of Assam,Shri Parshottam Rupala, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Atul Bora, Minister for Agriculture, AHVD and Cooperation, Government of Assam, and Atul Chaturvedi, Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Government of India. Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB and Maninder Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Cooperation, Government of Assam signed this MoU. The event was also attended by Tage Taki, Minister for Animal Husbandry, Veterinary and Dairying of Arunachal Pradesh and Dr. K. Beichhua, Minister for Animal Husbandry & Veterinary of Mizoram.
This venture aims to increase milk processing capacities to handle and add value to over 10,00,000 litres of milk per day in Assam. This will help around 1.75 lakh farmers to increase incomes and create huge employment at various levels of the milk value chain. The joint venture will be responsible to setup six dairy processing facilities across Assam, wherein milk from more than 4100 Dairy Cooperative Societies shall be processed, packed and marketed.
Furthermore, as part of this dairy development project, more than 15000 high milk-yielding Gir cows will be inducted into Assam to ensure higher returns to the dairy farmers of Assam. The plan also envisages setup of infrastructure for Cattle Feed and Silage manufacturing within Assam.
