Principal Secretary, Animal & Sheep Husbandry and Fisheries, Dr. Asgar Hassan Samoon, chaired a meeting of senior functionaries of Animal Husbandry and allied departments to review implementation of Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme (DEDS) at Civil Secretariat, here today.Threadbare discussion was held on district wise DEDS cases sponsored, sanctioned and distributed and cases pending with the banks besides functioning of Animal and Sheep Husbandry department.Director, Animal Husbandry Department Kashmir, Purnima Mittal and other concerned officers participated in the meeting through video conferencing.They highlighted the steps taken up by the concerned authorities for implementation of the DEDS scheme.Dr Samoon exhorted upon the officers to increase and fix the target of dairy industries to double as per the existing target of Rs 9000 crore. He asked all concerned Chief Animal Husbandry Officers to ensure that all genuine farmers get benefit under the scheme.Principal Secretary stressed upon all concerned officers to take all necessary steps to clear all eligible pending cases under Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme and sponsor new cases to banks for development of dairy sector in Jammu and Kashmir.
On the occasion, senior officers of concerned authorities highlighted the issues being faced by them during the process of sanctioning of loans under the scheme. It is pertinent to mention here that the Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme was launched by the department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries GoI in the year 2006-07 as dairy venture capital fund on pilot basis with the objective to extend assistance for setting up small dairy farms and other components to bring structural changes in the dairy sector.At first, assistance under the scheme was extended in the form of interest free loans to individuals, SHG’s Cooperatives etc. However, since September 2010 the scale of finance and mode of operation of the scheme was changed and beneficiaries were provided back ended subsidy instead of interest free loans.Among others, Director Planning, AHD, A G Malik, Director Animal Husbandry Jammu, Vivek Sharma, Mission Director Dairy Mission J&K, Pankaj Raj Katoch, AGM NABARD, Surinder Singh, Chief Manager SBI zone Jammu, J P Thappa, Chief Animal Husbandry Officers of all districts and representatives of lead banks of all districts were present in the meeting.