02 February 2026, Anand: Dr. Meenesh Shah, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) hailed the Union Budget 2026-27 as truly transformative, noting its initiatives to enhance farmers’ incomes, promote entrepreneurship in animal husbandry and dairying and strengthen cooperatives – key steps toward realising the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 and fostering inclusive economic growth.
Recognized as the growth engine of agriculture and allied activities providing livelihoods to rural households, the animal husbandry sector has received a significant boost in the Union Budget 2026–27, with an allocation of Rs 6,153.46 crore – up 16% from last year. The Budget also announced a Rs 500 crore Integrated Scheme for Entrepreneurship Development to expand employment through credit-linked subsidies, modernise livestock enterprises, build integrated dairy and poultry value chains and promote Livestock Farmer Producer Organisations, thereby fostering entrepreneurship and rural development.
The Budget will add 20,000 veterinary professionals and through a loan-linked subsidy scheme, support new veterinary and paravet colleges, hospitals, labs, and breeding facilities. Targeting India’s 53 crore livestock, including 30 crore dairy animals, the initiative also encourages global collaborations to drive innovation. Dr Meenesh Shah hailed it as a milestone for the sector.
In addition to the existing provision allowing full deduction of profits and gains for primary cooperative societies engaged in supplying milk, oilseeds, fruits, or vegetables raised by their members, this benefit has now been extended to cattle feed. With primary cooperatives selling about 102 lakh metric tonnes of cattle feed annually, this move will significantly reduce their tax burden, ensuring better returns for farmer members. India’s dairy cooperatives already return over 75% of the consumer rupee to producers, and this initiative will further enhance pay-outs, putting more money directly into farmers’ hands.
Chairman, NDDB welcomed the Budget move allowing inter-cooperative society dividend income as deduction under the new tax regime to the extent it is further distributed to its members, fostering investments in multistate cooperatives under Sahkar se Samriddhi. A three-year exemption on dividend income for notified national cooperative federations on their investments made in companies up to 31.01.2026, if further distributed to its members cooperatives, will further strengthen profitability and enable higher pay-outs to member institutions.
The Centralized Bio-CNG Model turns dairy waste into clean transport fuel and organic fertilizer, advancing circular economy goals. As announced in the Union Budget, the entire value of biogas while calculating the Central Excise duty payable on biogas blended CNG to be excluded which will be a major boost for scaling large Bio-CNG models nationwide, strengthening sustainability and promoting natural farming through organic fertilizer by-products.
In a nutshell, Chairman, NDDB described the Union Budget 2026–27 as one that ticks all the right boxes – providing impetus to agriculture, dairy and allied sectors, improving capital efficiency, reducing tax distortions across cooperatives and thereby boosting farmers’ incomes and employment opportunities.
