New Delhi, May 22 Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Sanjeev Kumar Balyan on Sunday inaugurated Harit Pradesh Milk Producer Company (HPMPC). The dairy firm has been formed and owned by 17,000 farmers of western Uttar Pradesh of seven districts Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Saharanpur, Hapur, Shamli and Bijnor.
"The government will support farmers initiatives in creating their own organisations. Farmers are demonstrating the meaning of empowerment and entrepreneurship," Balyan said while inaugurating the dairy firm in Meerut.
"The HPMPC is a new Cooperative in Uttar Pradesh. This is not a company, but a farmers' organisation where there is no place for politics or corruption in it," Balyan said.
He added that the government's focus is on increasing the production and productivity from indigenous milching animals. For this purpose, he said artificial insemination will be provided to farmers free of the cost across the country.
Balyan also said the government will also provide 4,500 veterinary ambulances across the nation.
Now, farmer will not need to visit veterinary doctors, instead they will visit farmers for animals treatment just after a call, he added.
Balyan said the Central government is focusing on the development of farm sector and the annual budgetary allocation has been increased to Rs 1,32,000 crore from Rs 22,000 crore in 2014. He praised milk farmers for procuring and pooling quality milk from hundreds of villages in 7 districts.
The minister complimented the National Dairy Development Board for facilitating four other such entities in Uttar Pradesh Varanasi, Amethi and Rae Bareilly and Bundelkhand for upliftment of farmers of the state.
The farmers are the shareholders of this organisation which will be guided by the Board of Directors elected among themselves. The firm will collect milk from its members only.
"Around 18,000 milk producers have become members of this organisation who has contributed to an amount of over Rs 55 lakh to the organisation," said Dairy Development Board Chairman Meenesh Shah.
He said that the milk collected from the farmers is measured here by automated machine and FAT-SNF of milk is checked by a transparent computerized system. The payment for the milk is directly made in the farmers bank account after an interval of ten days, he added.
Rajendra Agrawal, Member of Lok Sabha, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Member of Rajya Sabha, Bhola Singh, Member of Lok Sabha, Kanta Kardam, Member of Rajya Sabha and Pradeep Kumar Chaudhary, Member of Lok Sabha were present on the occasion.
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