Country's every village to be linked with cooperative: Shah

Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah today said India has become the world’s largest milk-producing country. He said the government’s goal is to connect every village in the country to the cooperative movement by 2029.

Artisans get toolkits, margin money of Rs 301 crore

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Nayab Saini distributed modern machines, including automatic charkhas, toolkits and margin money worth Rs 301 crore under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), encouraging artisans to move towards self-reliance through Swadeshi.

The Union Minister also virtually inaugurated PMEGP units, a Central Wool Processing Plant, and Khadi and Village Industries buildings, including the newly constructed office and warehouse of KVIC in Panchkula, Haryana.

"More than 75,000 dairy societies will be set up across the country and 40,000 dairy cooperative societies will be strengthened," Shah said while addressing the gathering on the occasion of the inauguration of the expansion plant of Sabar Dairy (Amul plant) at IMT Rohtak.

He said the plant — the biggest in the country — will produce 150 metric tonnes of curd, 3 metric tonnes of butter-milk, 10 metric tonnes of yoghurt and 10 metric tonnes of sweets daily.

The Union Minister maintained that the dairy sector in India has seen the fastest global growth with a development rate of 70 per cent over the past 11 years.

He said in 2014, milk production in the country was 140 million tonnes, which has now increased to 249 million tonnes. "The production of milk from indigenous cows has also risen from 29 million tonnes to 50 million tonnes, marking a significant achievement. Today, 8 crore new farmers are engaged in the dairy sector. As a result, per capita milk availability has increased from 124 grams in 2014 to 471 grams per day currently," said Shah.

He pointed out that Sabar Dairy, which started with three persons in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district, gradually expanded to nine districts of Gujarat and today operates a business worth Rs 85,000 crore in India and abroad. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini was also present among others.

Meanwhile, student leader Pradeep Deswal, social activist Naveen Jaihind and a few others were detained by the police at their respective houses in the city as a preventive measure during Shah's visit.