Referring to Direct Benefit Transfers (DBTs) to the accounts of farmers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today claimed that the scheme’s benefits were now fully reaching the people for whom it was meant unlike in the past when a previous Prime Minister lamented that only 15 paise in a rupee reached a beneficiary.

He was alluding to Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s famous remark in 1985 that only 15 paise of every rupee meant for the welfare of the downtrodden reaches them.

Modi was dedicating to the nation a new dairy complex and potato processing plant at Diyodar in Banaskantha district, built at a cost of over Rs. 600 crores. The new dairy complex is a greenfield project. It will enable the processing of about 30 lakh litres of milk, produce about 80 tonnes of butter, one lakh litres of ice cream, 20 tonnes of condensed milk (Khoya) and 6 tonnes of chocolate daily. The potato processing plant will produce different types of processed potato products like french fries, potato chips, aloo Tikki, patties etc, many of which will be exported to other countries. These plants are expected to empower the local farmers and give a boost to the rural economy in the region.

The PM also dedicated the Banas Community Radio Station to the nation. This community radio station has been established to provide the farmers with key scientific information related to agriculture and animal husbandry. It is expected that the radio station will connect with over 5 lakh farmers of about 1700 villages.

Modi also dedicated to the nation the expanded facilities for the production of cheese products and whey powder at the Banas dairy plant in Palanpur. Also, the PM dedicated to the nation an Organic Manure and Biogas plant established at Dama, Gujarat. He laid the foundation stone for four gobar gas plants of 100 tonnes capacity to be established at Khimana, Ratanpura – Bhildi, Radhanpur and Thawar.

The Banas Dairy has become a new economic force in the country, Modi said, adding the Banas Dairy movement was helping farmers and cattle rearing communities in states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Odisha (Somnath to Jagannath), Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.

Dairy today was contributing to the income of the farmers. He said that with milk production of Rs 8.5 lakh crore, the dairy was emerging as a bigger medium of farmers’ income than traditional foodgrains, especially where landholdings were small and conditions were tough.