Srinagar: World Milk Day was celebrated by the Directorate of Extension SKUAST-Kashmir at Vice Chancellors Secretariat, Shalimar Srinagar under the chairmanship of Vice Chancellor SKUAST- Jammu and Kashmir Prof. J.P Sharma. Prof. Dil Mohammad Makhdoomi (Director Extension), Prof. Gul Zaffar (Registrar), Associate Directors of Directorate of Extension, Head KVKs, Deputy Director (Trgs.), Scientists of the Directorate, staff of Vice Chancellors secretariat/Registrar office and a large number of dairy farmers joined the event in online and offline mode.
In his address, Prof. J.P Sharma lauded the efforts of Directorate of Extension for celebration of the event. Besides highlighting the significance of milk in improving quality of life, Prof. Sharma laid emphasis on the need of transformation of the dairy sector in J&K given the productivity potential of livestock, resources availability and consumer base. He stressed on zero waste dairy farming, enhanced shelf life of milk, consumer attractive and eco-friendly packaging, processing and value addition of the dairy products. Vice Chancellor urged the Scientists to make available extension literature on “Modern dairy farming and hygienic milk production” in vernacular languages for better comprehension, understanding and adoption of dairy technologies by the farmers. He expressed the need of establishing a state of the art dairy institute at Mountain Livestock Research Institute, Mansbal that will help in skill development of rural youth in dairy sector and their increased employability.
Prof. Dil Mohammad Makhdoomi, Director Extension, SKUAST-Kashmir in his address emphasized the importance of celebration and put forward scientific procedures for production of hygienic milk to prevent zoonoses of milk origin. He urged the scientists to reach out to the farming community and help timely vaccination and scientific rearing of milch animals in order to achieve the purpose of celebrating the World Milk day. He gave a brief account of preventive measures for averting udder diseases.
-On this occasion packaged milk packets of SKUAST-Kashmir were distributed among the offline progressive dairy farmers . The event ended with a vote of thanks to the chair.

KR Desk