Poultry layer farm to be set up at a cost of Rs 34 crore in Purulia

kolkata: In a significant stride towards self-sufficiency in egg production, the state Animal Resources Development (ARD) department is coming up with a commercial poultry layer farm at Gobindapur in Purulia I block.

The farm with a capacity of 2.40 lakh chickens will produce 9 crore eggs annually.

State ARD Minister Swapan Debnath had announced in the state assembly in March that Bengal will become self-reliant in egg production by the end of the 2023 calendar year.

A senior official of West Bengal Livestock Development Corporation (WBLDC) which is executing the project informed that the poultry layer farm will be set up on land measuring around 13 acres with an investment of Rs 34 crore.

"The work order has already been issued and we hope to start work in a week. It will take 18 months for setting up the farm," a senior official of WBLDC said.

The state has an annual requirement of 1440 crore eggs out of which 1170 crore are produced in the state. So, 270 crore eggs need to be imported from other states to cater to the requirement of the people.

Presently, 613.5 crore eggs are produced in the unorganised (domestic) sector, 550.23 crore through the organised sector and 6.10 crore through WBLDC. "We have already taken measures through which we will procure 726.75 crore eggs through the unorganised sector, 666.25 crore through organised sector and 47 crore through WBLDC," a senior official of the ARD department said.The department has already set up a broiler breeding farm with the capacity of producing 33000 eggs daily at Jhotiakhali in Jalpaiguri while 45000 ducklings are being reared at a duck farm situated in Kalyani.

WBLDC already has a chicken layer farm at Rathtala in Kalyani which produces 1 lakh eggs daily. The feeding of the birds, cleaning of their droppings as well as the collection of eggs are done in a fully automated manner.

The ARD department came up with the Incentive Policy 2017 for the poultry farmers with the department ready to provide subsidies to the extent of Rs 80 lakh for people working towards augmenting egg production.

The department is also providing attractive incentives in the power bill of the poultry breeders.Various projects across the state have come up deriving benefits of the incentive scheme. Purulia district alone has 9 projects under the scheme with an investment of Rs 24 crore.