Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy said efforts were on to strengthen the cooperative system, restore Chittoor Dairy and to ensure sustainable economic development of women through Aasara and Cheyutha schemes. The Chief Minister said in the past, dairies in the cooperative sector were diverted for self-interest and some turned cooperative dairies into their private companies, destroying the cooperative sector in the state.
The Chief Minister held a review meeting on Jagananna Palavelluva scheme and fisheries department and said it became inevitable for dairies across the state to increase the price of milk procured from farmers after Amul entered the market. He said now the income had increased from Rs 5 to Rs 15 per litre.
During the review meeting held in his camp office on Tuesday, the Chief Minister said some vested interests had destroyed cooperative services dairies for their self-interests. He said most of the cooperative service dairies were made to be dysfunctional in order to benefit Heritage Dairy. He said the state government had been implementing YSR Cheyutha and Aasara schemes for sustainable economic development of women who had bought cattle to increase their income. The state government had been constructing BMCUs to support them, he added. “A transparent cooperative system will benefit women,” he said and directed the officials to strengthen the cooperative system in villages and to restore Chittoor Dairy.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that Amul had purchased 71,373 litres of milk in November 2020, another 14,46,979 litres in August 2021 and a total of 1,10,06,770 litres of milk so far. Average purchase of milk had increased from 6,780 litres to 51,502 litres per day, they informed.
The Chief Minister unveiled Jagannanna Palavelluva guidelines for secretaries and a training handbook designed by the Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Cooperative Federation.
“Aqua hubs and retail shops are being set up across the state not only to provide nutritious food to the people, but also to provide better prices to aqua farmers by increasing local consumption. We have received complaints that exporters and processing companies are forming a syndicate and cutting the rates for aqua farmers. The government is stepping into pre-processing, processing and retail sectors to solve this problem. Officials should create awareness, promote and provide training on cultivation of sea foods that have good opportunities for exports,” he said and directed the officials to ensure new aqua laws were strictly enforced.
The Chief Minister instructed the officials to ensure subsidies for the aquaculture sector are directly reached to the farmers and asked them to come up with more appropriate ideas to benefit aqua farmers.
He released the ‘Fish Andhra’ logo on the occasion. The officials informed the Chief Minister that around 40,000 people would be directly employed through aqua hubs and affiliated retail stores and added that around 75–80 aqua hubs and 14,000 retail outlets would be made available by January 26 and pre-processing and processing units would be ready by December next year. They said steps were being taken to set up 10 processing plants and 23 pre-processing plants so that syndicate could be checked and farmers would get better prices.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that works related to four fishing harbours at Juvvaladinne, Nizampatnam, Machilipatnam and Uppada were started and they would be ready by June-July next year. They said steps were being taken to start the works at the remaining five harbours in December 2021 and they would be completed within 18 months.
