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New DelhiThe Centre is considering a move to allow cooperatives across animal husbandry, dairying, fish and poultry to borrow directly from banks other than just the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), as they are meant to currently.
This will be done by merging two funds, the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) and Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF), a measure that is set to be announced in the coming interim budget.
The outlay is expected to be around ₹29,000 crore, including the subsidy component for three years up to 2026-27.
Currently, cooperatives only have access to Nabard, the country’s apex bank for the agriculture sector, for loans, and the merger will create administrative ease for taking out future loans.
The move follows the expiry of the AHIDF’s term, which is now being extending for another next three years.
“The idea of the merger is that cooperatives should also be able to borrow from banks directly. Right now, they must go through the Nabard way,” one of the officials said. “The budget for separate schemes will be merged.”
The Cabinet in June 2020 approved setting up the AHIDF with ₹15,000 crore. The fund incentivizes investments in the establishment of infrastructure for dairy and meat processing, and facilitates the establishment of animal feed plants in the private sector.
The eligible beneficiaries under the scheme are farmer producer organizations (FPOs), micro, small and medium enterprizes (MSMEs), non-profit organizations, private companies and individual entrepreneurs with a minimum 10% margin money contribution by them. The remaining 90% is the loan component taken from scheduled banks.
Similarly, the DPIDF was launched in 2017 to create and strengthen milk processing, value addition and chilling facilities for dairy cooperatives, multi-state dairy cooperatives, milk production companies, NDDBs subsidiaries, self-help groups and registered. It was given an outlay of ₹11,184 crore, including a loan component of ₹8,004 crore from 2018-19 to 2022-23.
“With an outlay of ₹29,000 crore, including the subsidy component, AHIDF will be extended for another three years (2023-24 to 2026-27) and the components of DIDF will be brought under AHIDF for administrative ease, keeping one portal and as the request came from cooperatives. There will be no new name as DIDF components will be brought under AHIDF if approved.
This will be the first time when cooperatives across animal husbandry, dairying, fish and poultry will be able to borrow directly from banks in addition to the Nabard route,” the other official said.
Additionally, the Centre is also weighing tweaking the Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM), aimed at developing and conserving indigenous bovine breeds and enhancing milk production.
The first official said, “The scheme has been working very well. Certain new things we would like to do under RGM. We will formulate it, get approval from our department, send it to the expenditure department and then get the cabinet’s approval.”
“We are considering RGM because it worked extraordinarily. We have been able to spend funds and get desirable output—production and productivity are increasing continuously. With the additions, we would like to target more incorporation of technology, more aggressively on indigenous breeds and to ensure that all the benefits reach the farmers,” the official said.
Queries sent to the departments of expenditure and animal husbandry and dairying remained unanswered at press time.
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Published: 26 Jan 2024, 10:50 PM IST
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