Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh has said that the availability is 63 eggs per person per year in the country, while as per National Nutrition Institute this should be about 180 eggs per person. Agriculture Minister said this in a function organized by DADF on World Egg Day at Pusa in New Delhi, today. The poultry farmers and various stakeholders were participating in this function.Agriculture Minister said that India is among the top egg producer countries in the world and the production of eggs in the country is about 83 billion. He said that in order to increase egg production by three times many steps have been taken so that health of the children improves and poultry farmers get benefits. He said that Government of India is promoting poultry farming through National Livestock Mission. Financial assistance is being given to the BPL families for poultry farming. Poultry farming is being promoted under the component of entrepreneurship development and employment generation.Shri Singh said on this occasion that awareness should be created among the people about the nutrition values of eggs and doctors, nutrition specialists, academicians, women and child institutes, egg processing industries and related policy makers can play a vital role in this.
Agriculture Minister said that one out of four children up to five years is suffering from malnutrition. Egg can help a lot in combating the malnutrition. Shri Singh said that high nutrition contents are available in eggs as well as it is a very good source of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, B12, Amino acid and Folate, Iron, Phosphorus & Selenium. He said that the recent research shows that it is helpful in reducing blindness. The Minister said that National Egg Coordination Committee, Compound Livestock Feed Manufacturers Association of India, Animal Health Companies, Poultry Federation of India and Poultry Association have played a vital role in this programme.Earlier this morning, Agriculture Minister went to Delhi and inspected- Pusa 16, the new improved variety of arhar at the Indian Agriculture Research Council-Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi. This variety of arhar takes a period of 120 days to get ready for harvesting compared to its other varieties which takes about 165-180 days. This variety gets ready at once and is suitable for machine harvesting. After harvesting of this variety, crops like mustard, potatoes, wheat, etc can be sowed easily in the fields. Its production is 20 quintals per hectare and has 23.5% protein content in it.