Jorhat, Dec. 10: The Assam government has come out with a scheme to provide subsidy for buying high-breed cattle to upcoming entrepreneurs with an aim to assist youths employed in dairy farming and to boost milk production.

A group of 387 youths of Jorhat and Golaghat districts will get 1,548 Jersey crossbred cattle with 30 per cent subsidy from the state government, 10 per cent their own share and 60 per cent bank loan.

The beneficiaries are members of clusters of milk producers, who have been supplying milk to the dairy development department, which have been collecting the fresh milk for processing at the Bokakhat (Golaghat district) processing plant.

Jorhat and Golaghat are among the few districts selected in the state for the chief minister’s employment generation scheme (dairy development), under which the youths will benefit and will contribute an additional amount to the total milk production.

Dairy development officer (Jorhat), Nilim Kumar Bora, whose office has jurisdiction also over Golaghat and Sivasagar districts, told The Telegraph that the selection of the two districts would be a “big encouragement” for about 40 clusters of milk producers in both the districts.

These clusters had come up in the past five years following the launch of a pilot project with one cluster comprising about 10 people. The World Bank had been offering assistance of Rs 50,000 for procuring equipment and infrastructure development of the farms opened by the entrepreneurs.

Bora said under the new scheme, a member of a cluster would get four Jersey cows — two heifers and two milch. According to the scheme, 774 heifers and 774 milch cows had to be purchased for the beneficiaries. He said the beneficiary would have to pay 10 per cent of a cow with the state government contributing 30 per cent and the rest 60 per cent would be bank loan.

The official said the department and the respective district administrations had already taken up the matter with Assam Gramin Bikash Bank, which had agreed to finance the entrepreneurs. Bora said about 6,200 litres of additional milk would be produced daily in the districts once the scheme was launched, which was expected to be within two months.

The official said with the Central Dairy plant, on the southern outskirts of Row-riah in Jorhat, to be revived soon, it could process the additional estimated increase in milk production in the near future. At present, only one milk processing-plant is running in Upper Assam, in Bokakhat, since 2005.

The Bokakhat plant was earlier a chilling unit, which was reopened in 2001 and upgraded to pasteurisation plant in 2005 with state government funds (Rs 25 lakh). The plant can process 2,000 litres of milk daily.

Bora said the department would liase with the veterinary department to get the cattle checked to keep it free from diseases.