National KCC Conference Chaired by Parshottam Rupala in Mumbai on 4th September 2023 Aims to Boost Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Saturation
Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Shri Parshottam Rupala chaired a National KCC Conference recently in Mumbai on 4th September 2023 with all the stakeholders to boost Kisan Credit Card (KCC) saturation among animal husbandry and dairy farmers. More than 50,000 animal husbandry farmers virtually attended through 1000 common service centers across the country.
Considering the importance of this sector, the government in 2018-19 extended the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) facility to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers to help them meet their working capital requirements. The Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying in association with the Department of Financial Services, has been organising various campaigns since June 2020 to provide Kisan Credit Card facilities to all eligible Animal Husbandry and Fishery farmers.
In order to achieve further saturation nationwide, the AHDF KCC Campaign is further extended up to 31.03.2024. As a result, so far, more than 28.90 lakh fresh KCC have been sanctioned to Animal Husbandry and Dairy farmers, thereby providing them with an organisational credit facility to meet their working capital requirements. Due to the consistent efforts of this ministry, for the first time, working capital loan targets were fixed for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Sector along with term loan target during 2022-23. For the year 2023-24, Ground Level Credit target of Rs 2,68,000 crore is fixed for animal husbandry and dairying.
Livestock sector is an important subsector of agriculture in the Indian economy. It grew at a CAGR of 7.67 percent from 2014–15 to 2021–22 (at constant prices). This CAGR is higher than other sectors like the manufacturing sector, which has shown 6.3%, the agriculture (crop) sector, which has shown 2.14%, and the services sector, which has shown 5.32% for a similar period. India is the world’s largest livestock owner, at about 536.76 million. There are 100.8 million households and household enterprises with at least one livestock or poultry. The contribution of livestock to total agriculture and allied sector GVA (at constant prices) has increased from 24.38 percent (2014–15) to 30.19 percent (2021-22). The share of the livestock sector in total GVA has increased from 4.02 percent in 2014–15 to 4.75% in 2021–22.