60% funding for startups focusing on cow dung, urine

AHMEDABAD: Startups focused on "commercializing" cow by-products like dung and urine, in addition to dairy, could receive up to 60% of their initial investment as government funding, the chairman of the newly-established Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog has said.


"We will encourage youths to go for cow-based entrepreneurship and earn not only from products like milk and ghee, but also by-products like urine and dung that can be used for medicinal and agricultural purposes," Vallabh Kathiria, chairman of the cow board, told TOI.


Kathiria has been meeting academicians and interacting with students of the Gandhinagar-based Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India to chalk out strategies to attract youths aspiring to be entrepreneurs towards "cow-based business models".

The kamdhenu aayog, set up by the Narendra Modi government in February with an initial corpus of 500 crore, aims to be the growth engine for these new businesses. Kathiria said "commercialization of cow urine and dung" would encourage people not to discard cows that have stopped giving milk.

"We will also encourage research on the medicinal value of cow by-products. The board will provide a platform to scholars and researchers to project their research on these by-products. We will also hold training programmes and skill development camps for people already running gaushalas," he added.

The board chairman had earlier announced plans to promote a cow tourism circuit.

"The route will wind through areas where indigenous cow breeds are reared. We have identified states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Goa for this circuit," Kathiria said.