The government is keen to award those Individuals farmers and gaushalas who will maintain and have the best breed of DESI cattle. In an announcement from the Narendra Modi government is awarding the beneficiaries with Rs 5 lakh for quality indigenous breeds of cattle.

The Centre is asking for entries and nominations from all the states through the country of Individual farmers, gaushalas or cow shelters, and breeders societies by march end. Awards worth Rs 5 lakh, Rs 3 lakh, Rs 1 lakh numbering 3 will be given in November on National Milk Day.

The plan is according to works to select 500 "high productive" bulls and use advanced reproduction techniques with select indigenous cows to produce "7,000 super elite cows", which will help in upgrading 5 million indigenous cattle each year, secretary of the department of animal husbandry and fisheries told.

The breeds which are on target to up gradation and further quality improvement includes Indian cow breeds such as Sahiwal in Punjab, Rathi in Rajasthan and Gir in Gujarat. The center came up with the "Gopal Ratna' and 'Kamadhenu' cash awards schemes to reward and motivate individual farmers and trusts, gaushalas & NGO's that maintain the best indigenous breeds, adopting scientific management techniques and report increase in milk production.

The government brought this scheme under the belief that indigenous cows are more suitable to Indian climate and can handle stress better than exotic crossbred ones. The US, Brazil and Australia have imported India's indigenous cows even as successive governments here ignored them, officials said.

Apart from 40 recognised indigenous cowbreeds there are many non-descript cowbreeds. . "We plan to use select 2,000 bulls to produce 10 million upgraded cattle of such breeds every year through assistive reproduction. This will be a big game changer, the official said.

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