The government is undertaking five projects at a cost of Rs4.52 billion for strengthening of livestock services, construction of animal quarantine stations, livestock and dairy development board besides launching Pakistan Dairy Development Company.
According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan (2005-06) released on Sunday, the government has initiated five projects including project for strengthening of livestock services with a cost of Rs1992.51 million, Prime Minister 's special initiative for livestock with Rs1696.4 million, construction of animal quarantine facilities at various places including Northern Areas, Wahga border, Lahore and Khokhrapar with Rs300 million.
The other projects including the establishment of Livestock and Dairy Development Board and Pakistan Dairy Development Company would cost Rs54.28 million and Rs481 million, respectively, the report said.
It said that two projects including livestock production and development for meat production cost Rs1747.154 million and milk collection and processing and dairy production and development programme costing Rs1984.25 million are also in the pipeline.
To provide access to credit for small holders, micro credit schemes have been initiated through commercial banks ie Zarai Taraqiati Bank, Punjab Co-operative Bank and Punjab Small Industries Corporation for distribution of loans.
In this regard, the Punjab government has disbursed nearly Rs2 billion under the budget 2004-05 for small and medium term projects, however, the federal government is further working with stakeholders and other scheduled banks to facilitate credit to livestock farmers.
The survey underlined that In order to organise dairy sector, co-operative milk production and collection system is encouraged and milk processors have reported 35 percent increase in milk collection than the previous year.
The government has also established 12 laboratories in different poultry concentrated areas and developed a central laboratory at National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad to address avian influenza surveillance and monitoring.
So far, these laboratories have analysed more than 28000 samples from poultry and more than 700 samples from migratory birds, added the survey.
Shedding light on deadly bird flu, the survey said that approximately 100,000 birds have been culled in the wake of the epidemic.
The direct and indirect losses of the poultry and allied industries ran into billion of rupees. Consumer's shift towards other sources of meat (beef and mutton) unbalanced the supply situation which led to duty free import of meat and livestock.
Therefore, an amount of Rs100 million has been allocated initially to handle the bird flu outbreak and for compensation of poultry birds destroyed on account of bird flu. The survey pointed out that livestock sector contributes almost 50 percent to the value addition in the agriculture sector, and almost 11 percent to Pakistan's GDP, which is higher than the contribution made by the crop sector (47.4 percent in agriculture and 10.3 percent in GDP).
The role of livestock sector in the rural economy of Pakistan is very critical as 30-35 million rural population of the country are engaged in this sector for their livelihood. Within the livestock sector, milk is the largest and the single most important commodity.
Despite decades of neglect, Pakistan is the fifth largest milk producer in the world. The total value of milk produced is higher than the value of two major crops, that is, wheat and cotton, the survey maintained.
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