World Bank Team to Discuss 2nd Phase of National Dairy Plan Soon

The second phase of the National Dairy Plan (NDP-II), which will focus on assisting smaller milk unions in strengthening their marketing efforts and combating milk adulteration, is expected to be completed soon. The World Bank mission will visit Anand during the second week of July, according to NDDB Chairman Meenesh Shah.

"All initial clearances have been completed," Shah said, adding that the World Bank's support for NDP-II in the form of a grant/soft loan is likely to be limited to six to seven states rather than the entire country.

"India's position has now shifted. The grant that was previously available is no longer available. Both the Government of India and the World Bank must contribute equally to the project. "In NDP-Phase 1, we received 90% of the soft loan from the World Bank," Shah explained. The NDP-Phase II is expected to cost between Rs 1200 and Rs 1500 crore.

The second phase of the project, according to Shah, will focus on improving milk testing mechanisms, digitizing milk tankers to control adulteration in transit, and manure management, as well as providing assistance to smaller milk unions to strengthen marketing.

The project may support ethnoveterinary medicine co-operatives to treat common diseases while also focusing on earlier activities such as improving village coverage and adding more farmers to the co-operative network.

The NDP-I, with a budget of Rs 2,242 crore, was implemented across 18 major dairying states from March 2012 to November 2019. The NDP-I focused on increasing milch animal productivity and providing milk producers with market access.

The implementation of NDP-I has demonstrated that in a large and diverse country like India, a scientifically planned integrated approach to dairy development can be successful.

NDP-I, which served 59 lakh beneficiaries in 97,000 villages, also helped to reduce the cost of feeding per kg of milk, increasing milk producers' net daily income. Market access was provided to more than 16.8 lakh additional enrolled milk producers as part of the project, 7.65 lakh of whom are women.