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A webinar was organised for convergence of schemes of Department of Animal Husbandry with SHG members in National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) yesterday. It was a joint effort by both the departments to enhance the reach out of the schemes of Department of Animal Husbandry with the SHG members of NRLM. The webinar was organised under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) Ms. Alka Upadhaya supported by Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development Shri Charanjit Singh. Total 9500 members participated in webinar.
Ms. Alka Upadhaya started her address with thanking Ministry of Rural Development and Transformation of Rural India Foundation (TRIF) for initiating such awareness generating programme for SHG members. In her address to the audience the Secretary emphasised on enhancing production and productivity of cattle in dairy sector. She also said that the small ruminants like BACKYARD Poultry /Pig/goat/sheep too are source of income and nutrition for rural women. Hence entrepreneurship is being promoted among rural women to take up this activity.
She emphasises on increasing reach out of insurance of livestock and clarified that insurance of livestock is being promoted and subsidy on premium given by DAHD. However, there is lack of awareness and lack of clarity in addressing claims of insurance which is causing hinderance in its implementation. There is an opportunity for pashusakhis to get required training from the Insurance Companies to become their agents/sub agents and not only create awareness among SHG members about insurance but also act as insurance agent to support SHG members.
Other programme includes vaccination for preventive health of livestock for which government has schemes like NADCP/LH & DC in which vaccination is being done at the villages of the farmers. She also talked about zoonotic diseases (the diseases which spread from animal to human beings) for which awareness among masses is very important. She expressed her view that such interaction between DAHD and SHGs could be very fruitful for the future and we should promote such activities.
Shri Charanjit Singh also agreed with the view that Animal Husbandry is most popular activity among the SHG members and could be one of the activities which could help them to arrive at income of more than one lakh per annum for SHG which is envisaged under Lakhpati initiative. All the activities like fodder conservation could be taken up in entrepreneurship model. He informed that there are already 90 lakh SHG families who are being supported by NRLM in livestock sector, 1,30,000 pashusakhis who have been trained and already 11 milk producer companies and 4 poultry producer companies working across the country. He stressed on the need for more such companies and including more SHG members. He was also of the opinion that such interactions with SHG and DAHD should be continued in the future.
The DAHD officials explained about National livestock Mission schemes regarding entrepreneurship in poultry, sheep/goat and pig. How SHG members can benefit from these schemes? They also informed in detail about the production of fodder seed, entrepreneurship in fodder conservation and insurance schemes of livestock. In insurance of livestock new steps like introduction of RFID in place of ear tag and increase in subsidy of premium for insurance (upto 85% of total premium) has been introduced.
The programme ended with vote of thanks to Secretary, AHD, Additional Secretary, MoRD who laid emphasis on the importance of awareness generating programmes like webinars, DAHD and NRLM staff who supported in organising the event and SHG members, pashusakhis and SRLM staff who patiently listened to this presentation and could get support for take benefit of discussed schemes.
