LIVELIHOOD
A project on the promotion of Livelihood through Integrated Dairy Farming, vermicomposting, and Azolla cultivation is being implemented by NABARD in association with Channel Partner-Janlakshya, Katihar under its Umbrella Programme in Natural Resource Management (UPNRM) with 30 farmers of Chilmara&Facia villages of Katihar district. It started last year in the month of December”15. A loan of Rs.29 lakhs & grant of Rs. 3.55 lakhs were provided by NABARD for 30 beneficiaries in the project. It’s a unique project as it covers the cost of training, veterinary facilities, Al facility, and salary for the project coordinator for an effective monitoring system out of the grant support.
Earlier, these farmers were involved in agriculture only and a few of them had low milk-yielding varieties of a cow. Through this project 02 cross-breed cows will be purchased with an average milk yield of 10-12 liters per day. They purchased their 1t cow in the month of January/ February 2016 and a loan for the 2d cow will be given next month. Jitan Singh, one of the beneficiaries says that the loan process was very easy transparent& corrupt-free. He also told that not only he is getting pure milk for his family but also he is able to earn about Rs.6500 per month by selling the milk of one cow. After deducting monthly loan installment of Rs.2000 and expenditure for feed & fodder, he is able to save about Rs.2500 per month as net profit.
will further increase after purchasing 2nd cow. Not only this but with the vermicompost which is 100%o pure he is able to save money on the purchase of fertilizers & pesticides and the vegetables grown are healthy for self-consumption as well as for selling. Also, Azolla has not only increased milk yield by 10% but about also reduced the cost of feed for cows. Milk is purchased by the milkmen and they sell it further in the town market. In the future, If they are unable to sell milk through milkmen then milk will be sold to the Sudha milk collection center. How are to scale up things are being designed “SUDHA”‘ milk marketing of Government of Bihar.
