NEW DELHI: The World Bank has signed a deal with India to ensure that the latter gets a loan of $ 352 million for the country's National Dairy Support Project to give a boost to milk producing households and the beef up the country's overall milk production. The agreements were signed by Department of Economic Affairs Joint Secretary Venu Rajamony on behalf of the Government of India, NDP Mission Director Dilip Rath on behalf of the NDDB and Governance Adviser (World Bank India) Roland Lomme on behalf of the World Bank. In a statement released by the World Bank, the deal will provide an interest free loan financed by credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary lending arm. “Government of India and the World Bank today signed an agreement for an IDA credit of $352 million (about Rs1,805 crore) for the National Dairy Support Project to increase productivity of milk animals and improve market access of milk producers in project areas,” World Bank said in a statement. The National Dairy Plan (NDP) has been developed by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to improve India's grassroots dairy systems. This includes ensuring better animal productivity, smoother milk procurement from the villages, enhancing milk processing and marketing capacity. “The project will cover some 40,000villages across 14 major dairying states and is expected to directly benefit about 1.7 million rural milk producing households,” Department of Economic Affairs Joint Secretary Venu Rajamony said. India has the world's largest population of cattle, but lags way behind when it comes to total accounted milk production. Most of the cattle are owned by small-time farmers who use the proceeds from the sale of milk as a secondary income. As many as half the rural households; i.e., 70 million of some 147 million rural households depend on dairy, some completely, others totally for their livelihood. India produces more than about 112 million ton of milk, most of which is consumed in the country and almost none exported.
