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The Animal Husbandry Department has introduced Backyard Poultry Scheme under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme “Assistance to the State Poultry farms” which is a 80:20 scheme. The state share is in kind i.e. land, infrastructure, staff, etc. Since the medium and the large poultry farms have come up of late in the state due to the efforts of the department whereby training and other help in the form of project reports and opening of the units under subsidy have been provided to the poultry farmers. Therefore the department tried to give more attention to the small and marginal poultry farmers who have specific requirements w.r.t. the strain of the poultry bird provided. This is important because with the limited resources such group of poultry farmers need a disease resistant strain with local availability. This was ensured under the Backyard scheme where low input technology bird of coloured strain but disease resistant type are supplied to the farmers of the state @ Rs. 14/-chick of 2- 3 weeks age to prevent the early mortality. This scheme has been an instant success because it not only supplement the income of the poor farmers of the state but also provide nutrition of high order to them which is ample clear from the fact that about 2.00 lakhs chicks were distributed under the scheme last year.
Under the Backyard Poultry Scheme, various State Poultry farms are being strengthened while the Sundernagar and Nahan farms have been fully renovated. Works at Chauntra will be completed within a months time while the works at Palampur farm are 50% complete. The Chamba and Una farms too have been provided funds and the necessary estimates are being prepared prior the start of the strengthening works. The Government of India has sanctioned the following Projects:-
Besides the above, a project proposal for the strengthening of the Poultry Farm, Kamlahi, Shimla has also been sent to the Government of India recently for the necessary sanction. This project is of Rs. 1,05,91,650/- while the Central share comes out to Rs. 84,73,320/-. Moreover where only Ist installment has been received, the department has taken with the G.O.I. to release the balance amount which is as follows:-
As per the feed back from the field small poultry units of both broilers and eggers of 20 to 50 numbers are becoming very popular. There for department with the help of Govt. of India has started a scheme on cost bases for development of backyard poultry. This scheme is on 80:20 pattern (Central Share : State Share). Under this scheme chicks in the multiples of 10 are provided to breeder @ Rs . 10/- per chick. Transportation of chicks to nearest road head to breeder is arranged by the Department.
To fully meet the demand of chicks few poultry farms of the State are also proposed to be strengthen under this scheme. Sundernagar and Nahan Hatcheries have already been strengthened. Strengthening of Poultry Farm Chauntra is proposed next. Rupees 54.80 lakh were sanctioned under this scheme for Himachal Pradesh and first installment of Rs.27.40 lakh has been received form Govt. of India. |