Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund

IN NEWS:

• The Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) was approved in the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

ABOUT AHIDF:

• It will be a Rs 15,000 crore infrastructure development fund with an interest subsidy scheme.
• It aims to promote investment by private players and MSMEs in dairy, meat processing and animal feed plants, a move which is expected to create 35 lakh jobs.
• The fund is part of the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package announced in May to help people affected by the lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
• It  entails an interest subvention of 3-4 per cent which will be provided to farmer producer organisations.
• The AHIDF would promote infrastructure investments in dairy, meat processing and animal feed plants. Farmer producer organizations (FPOs), MSMEs, Section 8 companies, private companies and individual entrepreneurs would be eligible to benefit from the fund.
• The government had earlier approved the Dairy Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) worth Rs 10,000 crore for incentivizing investment by the cooperative sector for development of dairy infrastructure.

PRELIMS QUESTION:

Q. Consider the following statements regarding Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF):

1. It will have a corpus of Rs 15,000 crore
2. It will provide an interest subvention scheme for farmer producer organisation

Which of the statements given above is/are correct:

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2

Answer to Prelims question