Cash incentives under Grassland Development Scheme disbursed in North and East districts

MANGAN, 10 Oct: The Animal Husbandry Department, North district, organized a cash incentive distribution programme under the centrally sponsored Grassland Development Scheme. Cash incentives were handed over to 70 beneficiaries from Lachen-Mangan constituency who had undertaken fodder plantation works in their private land holdings under the scheme.
The programme was held at the District Veterinary Hospital, Mangan today wherein the beneficiaries were provided with a cash incentive of Rs 5000 each and fodder seed mini-kit of oat and maize for augmenting their winter green fodder reserves to feed their dairy animals. A sum of Rs 3,50,000 was distributed under Lachen-Mangan constituency in the programme.
The plantation works were carried out during the month of August 2013 by the beneficiaries themselves under the technical supervision of the departmental officials wherein the farmers were provided with planting materials and agriculture implements by the department as envisaged in the project guidelines. During the programme, the farmers were given a brief orientation and training on the significance of balanced feeding of concentrate and roughage and the need to raise quality fodder reserves in their own backyard in order to make dairy enterprise sustainable and viable.
In turn, the panchayats on behalf of the beneficiaries thanked the department and the Government for extending such essential benefit at their doorstep which will motivate them to propagate good varieties of fodder in the future as well.
Similarly, 117 progressive dairy farmers from different parts of East Sikkim also received cash incentives under the Grassland Development Scheme today here at Training Centre, Deorali.
Each beneficiary received fodder saplings of the latest variety of hybrid Napier, equipments for plantation, 6 kgs each of high yielding maize seeds and oat seeds and cash incentive of Rs 5000 as the labor charge for the fodder plantations.
The benefits were handed over by the AH&VS Director, Dr NK Rai, who was present as the chief guest, and Zilla Panchayat, Lakpa Doma Bhutia, who was present as the guest of honour.
AH&VS Additional Director, BS Subba informed that this scheme was a joint collaboration of the state and the central governments with the main aim to provide half-acre plots of land which would produce nutritious fodder to individual progressive farmers. He added that the ultimate aim of the scheme was to increase milk production of the state.