The Growth in Supply of Dairy Professionals in India

ABSTRACT Development of any sector needs the support of government policies and technically strong manpower in the sector. The beginning of formal education in the discipline of dairy science can be traced back to the year 1923 when the “Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry and Dairying” at Bangalore, which was later re-christened as the “National Dairy Research Institute” and shifted to Karnal, Haryana. Subsequently, several State Agricultural Universities established their constituent “Dairy Science” faculties having the responsibility of imparting Dairy Science education. The present study sought to estimate the growth in supply of dairy professionals in the country. Data were collected using questionnaires as well as from secondary sources. After analyzing the collected data it could be, it can be concluded that It can be concluded that - There are 20 Dairy Science Colleges in the country which offer Graduation, Post-Graduation and Doctorate level courses in the field of dairy science and their total intake capacity for the year 2015-16 for B. Tech (D.T.) course was 754 seats, for Post-Graduation 154 seats and for PhD. It was 21 seats. The intake capacity of the B. Tech. (DT) course for different colleges present in different zones of the country increased from 604 in the year 2011-2012 to 754 in 2015-2016 respectively representing the growth rate of 5.70% p.a. The highest growth rate in intake capacity was for south region (8.92%) and the lowest growth rate in the North region (0.61%). The number of colleges in the East is only 2 but it has 13 states and similarly Number of colleges in North is only 4 but it includes 9 states. The number of colleges is relatively much more in the West and South regions. Further, there is no Dairy Science College in North East states. Also for the next 5 year period, the supply of dairy graduates is expected to grow by 2.13% per annum during the given period. However, there is no growth in the supply of dairy post graduates and PhDs, which has been assumed by taking a conservative approach.