Dairy industry hails Budget 2018 provisions for the sector

PUNE: Dairy industry has hailed the 2018-19 budget provisions for the sector as first major boost after operation flood.

It is expected to help improve cash flows to the farmers besides improve their farming efficiency and credit worthiness, they said.

"Kisan credit card to Dairy farmers and fisheries will facilitate farmers to have better cash flow and improve credibility thus improving business growth," said Neeraj Kumar, managing director, Swedish MNC, DeLaval.


RS Sodhi, MD, Amul too thinks that the extension of KCC benefits to dairy farmers will be useful. "By extending the Kisan Credit Card to diary and fisheries, the Union budget has treated milk as an agricultural crop. Dairy farmers is usually landless and the extension of KCC will help improve his credit worthiness."

According to Sodhi, the Rs 10,000 crore fund will help the diary industry in upgrading and modernising the milk procurement, processing and marketing operation.

Kumar said that the Rs 2000 crore Infrastructure Fund for agricultural farm will bring possibility of better efficiency for agriculture.

He also expects that the budget provisions will help farmers scale up their business. "Allocation of Rs 10,000 crore to the dairy farming infrastructure and fisheries together will immensely help dairy farming to become more efficient by using technology. It will help farmers grow from holding 1-2 cows to 20-50 cows," said Kumar.