Involvement of women into the dairy sector will make India a world leader, said Radha Mohan Singh.

New Delhi: India’s Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh has stressed the need to further enhance the involvement of women into dairy sector so that India can lead the world in the sector.

Addressing the Golden Jubilee celebrations of National Dairy Development Board in Anand, Gujarat he said that the Government is set to remove all bottlenecks and inertia in the growth of the sector to further emulate, growth of Gujarat, in whole of country.

Radha Mohan Singh said that value of milk produced in India is now more than the value fetched by rice/paddy.” We are the biggest producer of the milk in the world and even export skimmed milk powder whereas I remember, as a kid in school, consuming British milk powder in 1960s.”

Highlighting the Government initiative to protect indigenous breed of cow, the Agriculture Minister said that Indigenous breeds of cows are about 83% of total number of cows, if their productivity goes up, even marginally, total milk production shall grow beyond our expectations. Indigenous cows are tolerant to climate change as well. The Government is working on “ Gokul Mission” worth Rs. 500 crores to promote the breed.

Underlining the importance of farmers in the economy, Radha Mohan Singh said that Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri recognized this and Atal Bihari Vajpai took it further, now it is our great fortune that Prime Minister Modi has given special focus to Agriculture in Union Budget. PM’s Gram Sinchai Yojana will ensure proper irrigation. First time in the history we have introduced soil health cards to check non judicious use of fertilizers and we are committed to provide these cards to all farmers within three years.

Radha Mohan Singh said that banks were nationalized long back but poor man never felt empowered by these institutions. Our Prime Minister recognized the need and launched ‘Jan Dhan Yojana” which has so many benefits for the poor man. Within short period more than six crore accounts have been opened which shows there no fault in the system but in the intention of the people in governance.

Agriculture Minister said that Mahatma Gandhi experimented Satyagrah first time from Chamaparan , which is my Parliamentary constituency, following him Sardar Patel launched Cooperative movement from the land of Gujarat. I salute Gujarat, Tribuvandas Patel and Dr. Kurien who significant contribution to cooperative dairy movement in the country.