JOIN US The Animal Husbandry department will utilise the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) facility to give incentive directly to dairy farmers.
Animal Husbandry Minister T B Jayachandra on Friday said the government would directly transfer the sum, Rs 4 per litre of milk produced, to farmers’ bank accounts in the coming month. “We are taking this decision to ensure that farmers get the benefit directly. We are going to undercut co-operative societies which were earlier giving the money,” he added.
The minister said the department had already collected bank account details of farmers in Bangalore and Mangalore, while details of farmers in other regions would be collected in next couple of weeks. In total, there are 7.5 lakh farmers who are supplying milk to the government, he added.
Jayachandra said the milk production this year had touched a whopping 63 lakh litres per day. “Apart from the availability of the fodder, good pre-monsoon showers and incentive schemes has increased the production of milk,” said Jayachandra. The government was spending as much as Rs 13 crore per day as incentive on milk producers, he added.
The government was also contemplating on giving raw milk to children instead of milk powder under its Ksheer Bhagya scheme by getting flexipack packets (plastic packets) mobilised for the scheme. “In Tumkur there is already a plant which produces flexipacks.
While milk in flexipacks can be stored for no less than a month, it is also cheap in terms of cost of production as it is estimated to cost Re 1 per pack,” he said. The supply of milk in flexipacks is likely to start from next academic year of 2015-16. At present, the government is planning to expand its Ksheer Bhagya scheme to five days a week.