Inaugurating the Eastern and North-Eastern Cooperative Dairy Conclave 2022 in Gangtok on Friday, Union Minister for Home and Cooperation, Amit Shah said that 15 years ago in a Himalayan state, no one could have imagined that cooperative dairy conclaves from across the country could be held here.
Shah said milk production is the only way for women empowerment, poverty alleviation and doubling of farmer’s income and it gives great peace of mind and feeling of joy to see the production of two lakh litres of milk per day by small farmer brothers in Sikkim.
Thanking the Prime Minister for having faith in the potential of co-op movement, Shah said the cooperative sector is a strong pillar of the GDP of Gujarat where 36 lakh women earn an annual income of Rs 56,000 crore through the Amul Federation.
Sikkim, which is called the Switzerland of the Northeast, should not be known only for its beauty, but by enriching every village, it has to be taken forward as a prosperous and developed state, stated Shah.
Since the dairy sector takes care of the nutrition of thousands of crores of children, Shah asked the NGOs working for malnutrition, women’s empowerment and the poor to focus on dairy because there can be no greater means for women empowerment than dairy.
Minister said that the gas produced from dairy helps the environment, cow dung helps in natural farming and natural farming improves human health. He said that the dairy system should be cooperative because if it is private, women will get only a few rupees, also in the cooperative system the profit earned will be directly deposited in the bank account of the woman.
“Govt has decided that in the next 5 years every Panchayat of the country will have PACS and a dairy. He said that the biggest benefit of this is going to be for the eastern and north eastern regions of the country as the least number of PACS are registered here. If one multipurpose PAC is opened in every panchayat in Northeast which will also have dairy, then no one can stop the prosperity of East and Northeast India”, underlined Shah.
Elaborating, Shah said NDDB has planned a Multipurpose PACS in every Panchayat which will do the work of
distribution of Dairy, FPO, Agriculture and Gas Production. Along with planning for LPG distribution, it will provide arrangements for petrol pumps and storage and marketing where ever required.
PACS will also work to connect the villages of the hill state like Sikkim with the whole world through PCOs in the village. He said that the Ministry of Cooperation has planned such multi-purpose and multi-dimensional PACS.
He said that today we have a target to increase the number of two crore cattle rearers of the country to seven crores and to include them within the chain of cooperatives. If we are successful in achieving this goal then both women empowerment and poverty alleviation will get the necessary boost. Shah said that along with strength, we also have to see our weakness.
There is a market of 130 crore in India. In our neighbouring countries, milk products come from Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia which have very high transportation costs. We have a huge opportunity to deliver milk to countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Under the leadership of Shri Modi, airports, rail links, new national highway networks, irrigation systems and new industries have been set up in every state of the Northeast. Shri Modi calls the North East as Ashtalakshmi. Shri Shah said that we have to move forward in such a way that these eight States become the States that create eight types of capital.
