The Centre's Dairy plays a very important role in supplying milk to the entire community at Rajghat campus. The livestock farm was established way back in 1981 with 50 cows with help of People Action for Development in India (PADI). The present cattle population stands at 85. Of which, cows' population is 46. Among these 46 cows, 36 are productive. The cattle belong to a hybrid variety -Holistein Frison. The average daily production of milk is around 350 litres per day. During the peak season (Nov-March) it is 9 litres/cow and in the lean period (July-Sept) it is 7 to 7.5 litres/cow. After meeting the campus demand for milk the dairy sells the surplus in the market.

Presently there are 15 heifers, 17 female calves, 5 male calves, 1 bull and a bullock. The cattle population requires around 70 tonnes of fodder. 10 tonne will be sourced from outside. And rest of fodder is produced by our agriculture farm.

The centre grows 60 tonnes of baraseem, jowar, bajra, etc, to meet the green fodder requirement. The paddy and wheat straw produced on farm is used as dry fodder.

Future Plans

" The livestock farm intends to have a spacious cowshed for the cattle to house.
" Very importantly, a labour room for attending deliveries will be constructed.
" In order to check a diseases spreading by the sick cattle, a separate sick room needs will be built in the livestock farm.
" There is ample scope for increasing number of cows in the livestock farm and the Centre intends to add more cows in the days to come.

Bio Gas Plant

The cattle in the dairy unit generate approximately 1000 kgs of cow dung every day. This is being used for producing biogas. About 10 years ago, KVIC assisted in installing a bio gas plant having 45 cu.m capacity. For a brief period, the plant was not functioning due to technical problems. Now the problem has been rectified and it is functioning well. The biogas is used for cooking purposes and 11 families are deriving benefit from this plant. The plant needs overhauling to make it more efficient, since it is almost a decade old.

Future Plans

Presently the plant is underutilized and as mentioned earlier, it needs a thorough overhauling. After it is serviced, the Centre is exploring to utilize the surplus gas produced for running a diesel generator in addition to using as cooking gas.

We need support of individual/organization who can help us installing/fixing the necessary efficient devices to the existing diesel generator to utilize the surplus biogas for running diesel generator.