BHUBANESWAR: The Government has decided to promote coloured birds in a big way with the target of increasing egg production as well as employment generation in the poultry sector.The Animal Resources Development (ARD) Department has decided to develop hatcheries, exclusively for the coloured birds, on public private partnership (PPP) mode. Of the 48 new hatcheries being established in the districts, 36 would be handed over to entrepreneurs for which tenders would be floated soon. This was decided in the first State-level review meeting of the Animal Husbandry sector presided over by newly-appointed Fisheries and ARD Minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi on Tuesday. The Government has completed construction of the hatcheries and incubators are being installed. The hatcheries would produce chicks of varieties like Giriraj, Banaraj, Chhapro, Kalinga Brown, Kroiler and Rose Island Red.“The coloured bird varieties can not only lay between 150 and 180 eggs a year but also weigh more. So, they would be more acceptable and palatable in terms of meat thus providing a more rewarding employment option for the rural youth,” officials said.The Department has set a target to increase egg production from 42 lakh to a crore eggs a day by 2020. Poultry meat production is also aimed to be enhanced from 70 tonne to 100 tonne annually by the same year.The Minister also emphasised on increasing fodder production for the livestock. Setting a target, the Department officials have been directed to provide 210 quintals of fodder seeds to the farmers before June 10 failing which disciplinary action would be initiated against the officials concerned. The Department has set sights on achieving fodder production of 200 lakh tonne per annum by 2020.Milk production is envisaged to be increased from 1.5 million tonne to three million tonne per annum in the next five years and 4.8 million tonne by 2020. Meat production would be raised to 110 tonne per annum by the end of the present decade.
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