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Incentive Schemes for Farmers, Youth and Entrepreneurs.

 i. Dairy/Poultry Venture Capital Fund:
 
Small rural producers scattered all over the country accounting for about 70% of production characterize milk production in India. In India, a far larger proportion of milk continuous to be handled by the unorganized sector i.e. about 85% comprising innumerable small processors and manufacturers of indigenous milk products. But the main contention in the unorganized sector is quality, which cerates a serious threat to human health. The Government of India has introduced this scheme in the tenth plan to provide financial assistance for setting-up/modernization of dairy sector.

The interventions through the scheme involve the generation of self-employment and providing infrastructure to the unorganized sector for making improvement in the quality resulting in food safety. It will help in bringing a significant portion of unorganized sector in the ambit of organized sector and will result in increasing the commercial viability of the activities.

The guidelines for the approval of the project shall be as below:
  • The financial assistance of 50% of the project cost will be provided by Government of India as interest free loan while 40% of the project cost shall be provided by the financing bank at the rate of interest as applicable for agricultural activities and 10% share of the project cost shall be borne by the beneficiary. Besides this, the Government of India will also subsidize the interest component applicable for agricultural activities to the extent of 50% in case of regular/timely repayment by the beneficiary.
  • The Government of India will release its share to NABARD, which will be maintained by it as revolving fund.
  •  The scheme will be extended to agricultural farmers/individual entrepreneurs and groups of all sections of unorganized as well as organized sector.
  • The proposals will be sanii. Livestock Insurance Scheme
 ii. Livestock Insurance Scheme
 
The Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying will introduce a Centrally Sponsored Scheme ‘Livestock Insurance’ in the year 2005-06.The justification given for introducing the scheme are:
  •  To protect the farmers and landless labour against losses, which they have to incur resulting from untimely death of livestock, owned by them.
  •  It is difficult for the Government to persuade the farmers to go in for genetic upgradation of their cattle through cross breeding or acquisition of high yielding milch animals unless sufficient incentive is provided by way of insuring them against losses (which will be much higher in case of crossbred and high yielding animals) caused by death of these animals.
The broad features of the proposed new scheme are:

i)While eventually all types of livestock will be brought under the scheme, it is proposed to concentrate initially on crossbred and high yielding cattle and buffaloes. Maximum 2 dairy animals per farmer will be insured under this scheme.

ii) While preference will be given to small and marginal farmers and landless labour, other farmers will not be excluded from the purview of the scheme.

iii) It is proposed to link the new scheme of livestock insurance with Centrally Sponsored Scheme of ‘National Project for Cattle and Buffalo Breeding’ (NPCBB) this scheme so as to ensure easy identification of animals to be insured and necessary follow-up; this will also act as an incentive for the participants in NPCBB.

iv) The insurance companies will be persuaded to apply the scheme rates (which are lower) or near scheme rates, for the animals to be covered under the proposed new scheme. The expected premium would be around 5-6% for a policy period of 3 years.

v) It is proposed that 50% of the premium should be borne by the Government(the remaining 50% to be paid by the beneficiary).

vi) To ensure active involvement of the veterinary practitioners at the village an incentive of the order of Rs. 50 per animal will have to be provided for them.

iii. Others Schemes for Dairying

Besides the Ministry of Agriculture, schemes relating to dairying are being implemented by other ministries viz. Ministry of Food Processing Industries,Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Rural Development. During the tenth plan, Ministries of Food Processing Industries (MOFPI) had been operating many schemes for the development of food processing sector which inter alia includes setting up/expansion/modernization of food processing industries covering all segments viz. fruits & vegetable, milk products, meat, poultry, fishery, cereal,pulses, oil seeds and such other agri-horticultural sectors. During the tenth plan, these schemes were merged and one macro level scheme for ‘Infrastructure Development’ has been introduced with a view to enabling small and medium scale units to attain viability by defraying the cost of major facilities such as cold storage,warehousing, R&D Laboratories, power and water supply, etc. Under the scheme Food Parks will be established in different parts of the country. For packaging center, entrepreneurs will get assistance upto 25% of the total cost of plant and machinery and technical civil works (33% in difficult areas) subject to a maximum of Rs. 2 crore. The scheme has also provision for assistance for stationary/mobile pre-cooling storage, refrigerated transport system and freezer cabinets at retail outlet. Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC) under the Department of Science and Technology also assist for projects like clean milk production and improvement of milk quality. The Ministry of Rural Development assists in the formation of dairy cooperatives especially women dairy cooperative through the Science Technology Entrepreneurs Parks (STEP) programme. Assistance is also available for construction of milk chilling centers.ctioned by the commercial banks as per the guidelines of RBI, NABARD and Government of India. The recovery of loan, when made, will be divided between the Government of India’s share and the Bank’s share of loan on pro-rata basis. Similarly, the loan will be disbursed simultaneously from the revolving fund as well as banker’s share on pro-rata basis.

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