Rangeelo Kashi Dairy Festival Opens at BHU Helipad Ground

The National Dairy Development Board and its subsidiary NDDB Dairy Services opened ‘Rangeelo Kashi’, a two-day rural dairy and livestock festival, at Banaras Hindu University’s helipad ground on Saturday, 19 September 2026. Uttar Pradesh Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Minister Dharmpal Singh inaugurated the meet, which runs through Sunday and is framed as a knowledge and marketplace platform for farmers, cooperatives, researchers and rural enterprises from Purvanchal.

Singh told the gathering that the state was supporting cattle purchase through subsidies and access to high-quality semen, and he urged farmers to use the government’s animal vaccination drive. He linked higher milk output at lower cost to the wider income goal for dairy households. This desk records those points as spoken at the inaugural without turning the report into a political pamphlet.

NDDB chairman and managing director Meenesh Shah said Rangeelo Kashi follows the first Rangeelo event in Jaipur and that the board is working to strengthen dairy systems in eastern Uttar Pradesh, including revival of older plants and promotion of higher-yielding breeds. Former Uttar Pradesh chief secretary and NDDB director Durga Shankar Mishra spoke about the state’s milk-production recovery and remaining headroom in the sector; those remarks are attributed to him as an NDDB functionary at the event.

Saturday’s programme featured a Nandi Show displaying Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Bhadawari and Gir animals for farmers to study. Organisers also felicitated meritorious children of milk-producer organisation farmers and beneficiaries of state dairy schemes. The wider menu includes a Grand Pashu Mela, technical sessions, workshops, demonstrations, Experience Zones and exhibitions meant to put practical tools in front of visiting producers.

Scale numbers shared for the festival point to more than 20,000 expected visitors, about 85 exhibitors, 500 delegates, 150 Pashu Mela participants and 20 Handicraft Haat stalls. More than eight high-genetic-merit breeds are on show, and total prize money is listed above ₹41 lakh. Those figures are organiser projections and prize pools, not gate counts audited by this desk on Saturday evening.

BHU’s helipad ground has hosted large outdoor congregations before; what is distinct this weekend is the dairy-tech and breed-show mix under NDDB’s Rangeelo banner. For students and researchers on campus, the adjoining workshops matter as much as the animal parade. For visiting women dairy farmers — including large groups reported from neighbouring districts on day one — the draw is low-cost yield advice and live animals that illustrate breed talk.

Rangeelo Kashi is a campus-linked agri event, not a crime brief and not a municipal works story. The verified stamp for Sunday morning readers is straightforward: NDDB and NDDB Dairy Services opened a two-day festival at BHU on 19 September with a ministerial inauguration, a Nandi Show of named indigenous breeds, and a published scale of visitors, exhibitors and prize money above ₹41 lakh. Day-two sessions will decide how much of that plan translates into packed tents.