Despite being one of the largest states in the past and now the biggest UT yet somehow Jammu and Kashmir has not been able to increase substantially agriculture and allied products to the extent that it has become almost stagnant. The condition of the poultry segment is more worrisome as we are spending almost thirteen hundred crores in importing broilers, eggs and feed. The problem gets more complicated with the fact that harsh conditions to carry day-old broilers, sometimes stuck up for days on the national highways, resulting in poor sustainability and obviously increasing cost manifold. The very fact that our UT is a non-industrialised one as such not many opportunities of employment. Keeping all these aspects in mind an expert committee worked out 29 points program and focus on poultry and allied works is one of them. The plan has been chalked out to infuse two hundred fifty crores over a period of five years to increase poultry yield from the present seven hundred crores to two thousand crores approximately. More than four hundred enterprise units are supposed to come up generating thousands of employment avenues. Investments are planned to form new composite broiler parent farms cum hatcheries, strengthening existing egg production capacity to 100 crore eggs annually and feed manufacturing units with a focus on millet crops on the agricultural front for feed. Youth will be provided with the necessary training and financial assistance as such many opportunities are created for unemployed youth. It is a fact that with so much poultry import there is practically no check on quality and the situation becomes more serious in the case of bird flu as unchecked imports pose a serious health threat to the public. Further Animal Husbandry Department’s Belicharana farm and other offices are to be shifted for Jammu Airport expansion as such may hamper the work as planned. But the efforts of the Agricultural Production Department are much appreciated if implemented as projected, it will definitely be a game changer for poultry production in Jammu and Kashmir, self-reliant, best quality product and of course employment generator.
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