Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Parshottam Rupala on Monday launched NDDB MRIDA Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary company of National Dairy Development Board that will work in manure management initiatives across the country.

With the Centre’s nod, the NDDB has established NDDB MRIDA, an unlisted Public Limited Company under the Companies Act on July 1, 2022 with the paid-up capital of ₹9.50 crore, an official statement said.

Rupala said that NDDB Mrida Ltd will open avenues of additional income to dairy farmers from sale of slurry/dung. By replacing cooking fuel with biogas, farmers will be able to save money, he added. Informing that various efforts made for better utilisation of bovine dung are mostly individual initiatives, Rupala hoped that the new company would provide structured impetus to manure management efforts.

Promoting usage of dung-based manure will gradually lead to replacement of chemical fertilisers with organic manure thereby reducing dependency on India’s fertiliser imports, Rupala said.

Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Sanjeev Kumar Balyan said this is a first-of-its-kind company focussing on efficient utilisation of dung by creating a manure management value chain which will contribute to enhancing the livelihoods of dairy farmers.

Manure management initiatives

According to L Murugan, a Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, the manure management initiatives have potential to generate biogas equivalent to 50 per cent of India’s present LPG consumption and to produce bio slurry equivalent to 44 per cent of India’s NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous and potash) requirement.

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