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Telangana tops in sheep population in the country

From importing the sheep to exporting, the Telangana state registered a tremendous increase in meat production.
The state now ranks top in the country with a sheep population of 190.63 lakh now.
It was all made possible with the free distribution of sheep to Golla and Kurma communities in the state that aims at economic empowerment of those communities. Each beneficiary is given 21 sheep under the scheme. The state government allocated a budget of Rs 11,000 crore for the purpose and in the first phase a total of 3.94 lakh benefitted from the scheme that cost Rs 5,001.53 crore to distribute 82.74 lakh sheep.
In the second phase, the Telangana government plans to distribute 73.50 lakh sheep to 3.50 lakh beneficiaries with an estimate of Rs 6,125 crore.
Before the launch of the scheme there were 3,969 cooperative societies with 2.24 lakh members. Now there are 8,109 societies with a membership of 7.61 lakh people. The meat production in the State is estimated to be around 32 percent sheep and eight percent goat meat with a total meat percentage of 40 percent.
In the last four years following the sheep distribution scheme, meat production increased to 10.5 lakh tonnes from 7.54 lakh tonnes since June 2017 when CM KCR launched the scheme.
The CM KCR during one of his media conferences said every day over 500 lorries with sheep and goats arrived in Hyderabad and now 80 percent import from other states had come down.
Soon the Telangana state will be in a position to export the sheep and goat. For now the state is reaching self reliance in meat production.

By Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao

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