With milk prices rising sharply this year because of widening demand-supply gap, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has prepared a detailed action plan for augmenting milk production during the next decade by improving productivity of cattle.

The National Dairy Plan (NDP) prepared by NDDB, department of animal husbandry and dairying envisages financial allocation for increasing bovine productivity, expanding coverage of milk producers and procurement.

The plan was finalised recently after holding series of consultations with 14 key milk producing states.

The World Bank supported NDP is aimed at increasing annual milk production to more than 166 million tonne by 2021 from the current level of 108 million tonne through production of high genetic merit bulls by coordinated efforts at the grassroots.

World Bank would provide soft loan to the tune of Rs 17,000 crore to NDP during the next 15 years.

In the first phase of the programme scheduled for 2011 – 2017, the World Bank would provide loan to the tune of Rs 1,600 crore which would be repayable over the next 35 years.

?Milk production is proposed to be enhanced by increasing productivity through a much more scientific approach to breeding and feeding,? Amrita Patel, chairperson, NDDB said.

This massive programme for increasing milk production comes at a time when gradually the gap between demand and supply of milk is widening resulting in sharp increase in retail prices.

NDDB would now prepare detailed project reports for five-six states once NDP is approved by the government.

In the past two years, milk prices have risen from Rs 17 a kg to Rs 24 a kg. Acute shortage of fodder and lower productivity has led to a situation where the government could consider importing milk to maintain domestic supplies.

Last year’s drought in many parts of the country, lead to an acute scarcity of fodder, which made milk procurement costlier.

Fodder comprises almost 70% of the cost of milk. Fodder includes dry wheat, millet or paddy stalks and green fodder.

Milk production in the country crossed the 108.5-million tonne mark last year, but the demand is projected to grow sharply in the coming years and is estimated at 166 million tonne by 2020.

?This demands an average incremental increase in milk production of 5 million tonne per year, as against the average annual increase of 3.2 million tonne during the last 15 years,? agriculture minister Sharad Pawar had recently said.

The Centre had earmarked a corpus of Rs 550-crore for dairy development in the current Five-Year Plan period under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. Under the scheme, states are empowered to select schemes in the dairy sector as per their priority.