PDDC fails to bring 'white revolution

LAHORE- The Pakistan Dairy Development Company (PDDC) aiming to bring white revolution in three stages within the period of three to five years badly failed to achieve set targets. Sources say that a little more attention by the government can put the dairy sector in proper order to make it a major source of revenue generation. They said legislation with a view to develop quality product as well as for better liaison with the companies abroad can highly be conducive for the promotion of dairy sector. These development programmes would be useless without ensuring remedies to basic health sanitation and husbandry problems of the livestock in Pakistan, experts said. According to them, no development programme can succeed without ensuring the basic measures regarding hygiene, sanitation and the medication, husbandry of cattle and investments made on these development programmes. Despite the fact Pakistan is the 4th largest milk producing country in the world with 33 billion litres of milk produced annually, our dairy sector is the most neglected in terms of legislation and government support. In order to streamline diary sector, not only legal side but the objective conditions needs to be addressed. According to sources, the Government had established Pakistan dairy development company in September 2005 with a primary objective to develop the dairy sector addressing the problems and providing congenial atmosphere for raising the cattle. The PDDC claims that since their establishment they have installed 975 model dairy farms and 1201 cooling tanks throughout Pakistan however they are planning to further establish 1465 model dairy farms and provide 5129 cooling tanks. However PDDC has also introduced the concept of community farms in order to enhance the economic conditions of the farmer and minimise the role of middleman. In addition to that there are different developments programmes in the pipeline like milk pocket development programmes and bulk milk vending programmes. According to the sources, Punjab Assembly has passed the Punjab Live Stock and Dairy Development Board Act 1974 but it is too insufficient to cater to the basic needs of dairy and livestock development.