FGG raises pitch for mid-term appraisal of State sheep scheme

Hyderabad: The Forum for Good Governance (FGG) has urged the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) to take up the mid-term appraisal of sheep-rearing units taken up by the State Sheep and Goat Development Cooperative Federation Ltd.

The FGG secretary M Padmanabha Reddy wrote to the NCDC MD seeking appraisal of the scheme. He said the State federation had submitted proposals for a loan amount of Rs 4,000 crore for grounding four lakh sheep units at a cost of Rs 1.25 lakh each. Of the total Rs 5000 crore, the loan component is Rs 4,000 crore. The beneficiary contribution is Rs1,000 crore. Starting from 2016 the scheme was to be complete by 2019.

During the last six years, four lakh units at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore were grounded. The federation with eight lakh members wants to cover all of them on saturation mode. It had approached NCDC for the second phase with an outlay of Rs. 6000 crore for further loan of Rs 5,000 crore to cover all members, which is under active consideration.

The scheme was taken up no thought was given for intensive stall feeding system and quality in rearing sheep leading to serious irregularities. Of the four lakh shepherds said to have received the units, 50 per cent were only engaged in sheep rearing; the rest either received units only on paper or sold to other beneficiaries.

Marketing is totally handled by middlemen and they purchase sheep at a lesser rate putting shepherds to loss. While the mutton rates in the market are increasing regularly they are not getting full benefit of the price escalation of mutton. There is therefore the need for a regulatory market, Reddy said.

The federation has so far taken a loan of Rs 4,000 crore and another Rs 5,000 crore is in pipe line. In all Rs 9,000 crore is to be paid at 11 per cent interest in seven years. In seven years the principal and interest may become to Rs 16,000 crore. The FGG wanted the scheme to be evaluated by appropriate agencies and a white paper brought out before release of the second loan instalment.