Home India Biplab Deb: Setting up industries take crores, cows will ensure earnings in 6 months

Biplab Deb: Setting up industries take crores, cows will ensure earnings in 6 months

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb announced Sunday that the state government will be launching a scheme to distribute cows among 5000 families and will provide loans to procure livestock.

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. (File photo)

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb Sunday announced the state government will be launching a scheme to distribute cows among 5000 families in order to combat malnutrition and generate employment in the state.

Speaking at an executive committee meeting of Tripura Pradesh Krishak Morcha on Sunday, Deb said 5,000 farmers across the state would be given cows by facilitating bank loans for them. Interest on such loans will be paid by the state government.

Biplab, who had earlier insisted on rearing cows as means of employment for the youth, said that unlike setting up big industries in which “one has to invest Rs 10,000 crore for employing 2000 people”, giving 10,000 cows to 5,000 families will help people start earning in “6 months”.

BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharya issued a press statement quoting the Chief Minister and said the exercise to identify villages for this scheme will be started. Beneficiaries from these villages would be provided the livestock. The milk produced by the cows will be procured, and then marketed, by the government.

Deb said the project would take flight from December. Work has already started and the subject will be soon raised for approval in the state cabinet, he said.

“This project will help to solve unemployment in the state to some extent. It will go a long way in fulfilling demand for milk in the state. We shall be able to combat malnutrition by it as well,” Deb was quoted as saying in the press statement.

While reiterating that the problem of unemployment could not be solved by waiting for a government job, Deb has promised that government jobs would continue to be provided in an accountable and fair manner. He also called upon farmers to contribute in fulfilling the target of making Tripura a model state in the next three years.

In April, Deb had advised graduates in the state to rear a cow instead of remaining unemployed. “Every household must rear a cow. Here milk sells for Rs 50 a litre. Had a graduate who has been searching for employment in the last 10 years reared a cow, then their bank balance would have been Rs 10 lakh by now,” he said.

Deb added that narrow-minded concepts like “a graduate cannot opt for farming, start poultry, or piggery because if he does so, his class will go down” has left many unemployed.

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