NDDB’s Dr Meenesh Shah highlights milk produtivity schemes

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Karnal, March 13

Dr Meenesh Shah, Chairman and Managing Director of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Anand, Gujarat, highlighted the challenges faced by the dairy sector and interventions needed to overcome these at ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI). He was there to deliver Dr D Sundaresan Memorial Oration on ‘Indian Dairy Sector – Retrospect and Prospects’on being conferred the award.

He said: “We are proud to be the largest milk producer and consumer in the world since 1998. This feat has been achieved by the coming together of millions of dairy farmers, most of whom operate on a small and marginal scale.” Shah was conferred the Dr D Sundaresan Memorial Oration Award. On the occasion, Dr Dheer Singh, Director, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal said that Dr Shah was an eminent technocrat with an illustrious and multifaceted career of more than 38 years in the dairy sector.

Dr Singh said in recognition of his contribution to conceptualising, planning and implementing several interventions in the dairy and allied sectors they felt privileged to confer the award on him.

Dr Shah added that Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM) Scheme as a Central Sector Scheme was being implemented to enhance the productivity of bovines to increase milk production using advanced technologies and to propagate the use of genetically superior bulls for breeding.

Dr Shah also highlighted the contribution of NDRI to the dairy sector. He said nearly 70 per cent of the cost of milk production went towards feeding and suggested that one of the approaches to deliver precision nutrition was by popularising bypass proteins, fat supplements and total mixed rations.

He also said that NDDB had continued to provide technical advisory for ration balancing programmes, implemented to increase the production of milk as well as decrease the cost of production per litre of milk, along with promoting compound feeds. Dr Ashish Kumar Singh, Joint Director (Academics) briefed the audience about the contributions of the late Dr D Sundaresan, in whose name the award was constituted. — TNS