Establishment of 1 to 20 Milch Animal Farm

What is the Establishment of 1 to 20 Milch Animal Farm scheme?

Establishment of 1 to 20 Milch Animal Farm is a scheme of the Directorate of Animal Husbandry under the Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Co-operation Department, Government of Gujarat. The scheme helps a livestock keeper set up a small dairy unit of between 1 and 20 milch animals, cows or buffaloes: by paying an interest subsidy of up to 12 per cent for five years on the bank loan raised for the purpose.

The design choice here is worth understanding, because it changes what the scheme is useful for. This is not a capital grant that hands you money to buy a buffalo. It is an interest subvention: you take a term loan from a nationalised bank or an RBI-approved financial institution against a unit cost determined by NABARD or the bank, and the state absorbs a large part of the interest burden for the first five years. The period in which a new dairy unit is least able to service debt from its own milk income.

Gujarat's dairy co-operative structure makes this a practical proposition. A household with two or three animals already has an assured procurement channel through the village dudh mandali, so the constraint on scaling up from three animals to ten is usually the cost of credit rather than the market for milk. That is exactly the constraint this scheme is built to relieve.

Key features

• Unit size of 1 to 20 milch animals, chosen by the applicant according to need and capacity to maintain.
• Interest subsidy up to 12 per cent on the loan, for 5 years.
• Loan must come from a nationalised bank or an RBI-approved financial institution.
• Unit cost is as determined by NABARD or the lending bank, not a figure the applicant sets.
• Applications are made online on iKhedut and processed against an annual target.
• Separate sub-components exist for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe applicants, notified under their own scheme codes.

Who is eligible for the milch animal farm scheme?

You can apply if:

• You are a permanent resident of Gujarat.
• You fall in one of the target groups the department names, agricultural labourers, small and marginal farmers, landless persons, pastoralists (maldharis) and educated unemployed persons.
• You have land or a house where the shed and animals can be kept, and access to water.
• You have obtained, or can obtain, a sanctioned bank loan for setting up a unit of 1 to 20 milch animals.
• You hold a bank account in your own name for the subsidy credit.

You cannot apply if:

• You have no sanctioned loan. The scheme subsidises interest, so a self-financed purchase has nothing to claim against, this is the most common misunderstanding about the scheme.
• You want a unit larger than 20 animals. Bigger units fall under different schemes with different unit costs and conditions.
• You have no space or water for the animals. Field verification checks this, and a claim to keep ten buffaloes with no shed site will not survive inspection.
• You are not resident in Gujarat.
• You are applying under an SC or ST sub-component without the caste certificate to support it.

The eligibility list is unusually wide by design. Unlike most iKhedut agriculture schemes, this one does not require agricultural land in the applicant's own name; landless persons and pastoralists are explicitly included, provided they can show a house or site for the shed.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the 1 to 20 Milch Animal Farm scheme

1. Prepare the project with a bank first. Approach your bank branch with a simple plan; how many animals, what breed, where they will be kept, expected milk yield and where the milk will be sold. The bank assesses the unit cost against NABARD norms.
2. Open the iKhedut portal at ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in during the notified application window for the financial year.
3. Select Schemes (Yojanao), then Animal Husbandry Schemes, and find the Establishment of 1 to 20 Milch Animal Farm entry — choosing the general, SC or ST variant that applies to you.
4. Register as a new applicant with your Aadhaar and mobile number, or sign in with your existing registration number.
5. Fill in the application; personal details, category, number of animals proposed, site details, loan and bank account details.
6. Upload the documents: Aadhaar, loan sanction letter, land or house ownership proof, bank passbook, caste certificate if applicable, and photograph.
7. Confirm the application. An unconfirmed application is not counted, and confirmation cannot be reversed.
8. Print the confirmed application, sign it or affix a thumb impression, and submit it with photocopies of the documents at your taluka animal husbandry office, or upload the signed scan where the portal allows it.
9. Wait for sanction and field verification, then draw the loan and set up the unit. The interest subsidy is released against the loan account thereafter.

How to apply with help if you cannot use the portal

The application has to start online, but you do not have to do it yourself:

1. Use the Village Computer Entrepreneur at the gram panchayat e-Gram centre.
2. Use a Common Service Centre and collect the printout.
3. Ask the taluka animal husbandry office or the local veterinary officer for assistance during the window.

No agent has any authority to charge a commission on the subsidy. A small notified data-entry charge at an e-Gram centre is a different matter.

How to check your application status

1. Open ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in and choose Application Status.
2. Enter the application or reference number from your printed confirmation and your registered mobile number.
3. The screen shows whether the application is pending, pre-approved, sanctioned or rejected.
4. For the subsidy credit itself, ask your bank branch. An interest subsidy is adjusted against the loan account, so the branch, not the portal, holds the transaction record.
5. Escalate to the District Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry if the status does not move for several weeks after the window closes.

Why milch animal farm applications get rejected

• No bank loan sanctioned, or the sanction letter was never uploaded. This is the leading cause of rejection.
• Application confirmed online but the signed printout never submitted at the taluka office.
• Target for the district exhausted. The scheme runs against an annual target and applications are worked in order.
• No site or water source for the proposed unit, found at field verification.
• Bank account name mismatch between the passbook, Aadhaar and loan account.
• Caste certificate missing on an SC or ST component application.
• Unit size above 20 animals, which pushes the proposal into a different scheme.

A rejection on documentation is usually curable in the next application window. A rejection on unit viability, no shed site, no water, no realistic milk outlet: is not, and is better addressed by scaling the proposal down to a number of animals you can genuinely maintain.

Where to get help

• Taluka Animal Husbandry Office and the local veterinary officer. The first point of contact for the scheme and for field verification.
• District Deputy Director of Animal Husbandry for escalation.
• Directorate of Animal Husbandry, Gujarat at doah.gujarat.gov.in for the scheme text and the list of animal husbandry schemes.
• Your bank branch for the loan, the unit cost assessment and the interest subsidy adjustment.
• iKhedut portal at ikhedut.gujarat.gov.in for the application window, application status and portal problems.

Because the interest subsidy rate, the unit costs and the target numbers are re-notified each financial year, read the scheme text shown on iKhedut for the current year before committing to a loan. The department also runs closely related schemes, for milch animal purchase, shed construction and fodder equipment, and the taluka animal husbandry office is the right place to work out which combination suits the unit you actually intend to build.