NEW DELHI, Apr 29: The Centre on Saturday rued that animal husbandry departments in state governments are not fully utilising central funds for development of this sector and urged them to spend money to implement projects.
Addressing an event to mark the ‘World Veterinary Day’, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Parshottam Rupala stressed on registration of birth and death of livestock for having a real time data.
The ‘World Veterinary Day’ honours the veterinary profession every year on the last Saturday of April.
Rupla said the government conducts ‘Livestock Census’ regularly, but there is no provision currently for registration of birth and death similar to human beings.
“This is a shortcoming in the animal sector,” he said, and stressed on addressing this gap.
There should be some scientific way to count birth-death in livestock sector as real time data will benefit all stakeholder and help achieve higher growth, the minister said.
Livestock Census covers all domesticated animals and its headcounts for total 16 species of animals including cattle and buffalo. As per the census 2019, the total livestock population stood at 536.76 million in the country.
Speaking at the event, Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Sanjeev Kumar Balyan highlighted that the budget allocation of this ministry has increased in the last few years. An outlay of Rs 12,500 crore has been announced for tackling foot and mouth disease and brucellosis, he added.
“We (Centre) do not spend money. States do it. We provide funds to states for undertaking projects in this sector. Vaccination process is under the Centre and 100 per cent funded by the central government,” Balyan said.
“It’s very unfortunate that in the last 2 years, animal husbandry departments in the states/UTs have not been able to utilise central funds. Every year, we have to surrender funds allocated under the central budget,” Balyan said.
The ministers and bureaucrats in state governments should see how to enhance the spending capacity for effective implementation of the programmes, Balyan said.
Even in the last financial year, he said, the budget amount was not fully utilised.
“States are not able to utilise funds despite repeated request,” Balyan said.
He lamented the inferiority complex among bureaucrats and ministers in state governments, who have been given charge of the animal husbandry department and attributed it as the reason for lack of enthusiasm to spend central funds.
The minister said he is proud of being veterinary doctor and there should not be any inferiority complex.
On sidelines of the event, Balyan said there is no dearth of fund and states should spend money for the growth of this important sector.
Earlier, Rupala highlighted the importance of animal husbandry in India and said this profession must have started before farming activities. He noted that India is the largest milk producer in the world and the value of milk output is pegged at around Rs 9-9.5 lakh crore annually, higher than the values of wheat and rice combined.
Talking about the challenges, Rupala said average productivity is still less and said efforts should be made to enhance it.
He said new technologies like artificial insemination, IVF, semen sorting, embryo transfer and cloning of animals are being adopted in this sector but there is a need to scale up.
Rupala said the Centre has sanctioned Mobile Veterinary Units (MVUs), which will prove to be effective in successful use of these technologies.
MVUs provide diagnosis treatment, vaccination, artificial insemination, minor surgical interventions, audio-visual aids and extension services to farmers/animal owners at their doorstep in far-flung area.
The minister spoke about the huge business potential in this sector. He said pet care and animal feed businesses are growing at a fast pace.
Rupala said the government is also working towards modernising fish markets and give experience to customers like shopping malls. (PTI)
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