Context:

The twentieth livestock census indicated that India’s livestock population is approximately 537 million; of this, 95.8% is concentrated in rural areas. 

Concerning Fact: 

• Most of the country’s livestock is in rural and remote areas but their access to veterinary services is a major challenge.
• Livestock farmers are often compelled to travel far from their villages whenever their animals need treatment, a scenario that adversely impacts the longevity and the productivity of their livestock.

Challenges Faced by Them:

• Inadequate Testing Facilities: 
  • Inadequate testing and treatment facilities for veterinary diseases pose a major challenge, especially now where there is a drastic rise in cases of zoonotic diseases. 
  • Most villages in the country lack testing facilities, and even when samples are collected, they need to be sent to blocks/districts nearby for test results. 
• Untrained Health Workers: 
  • They have been popular in rural India as they charge less for consultations and are easily accessible, which has led to the inappropriate administration of antibiotics because of flawed prescriptions.
  • Antimicrobial Resistance: It occurs when the animal no longer responds to a drug to which it was originally responsive.
    • Antimicrobial resistance can be caused because of factors such as high or low dosages, incorrect duration of medication, and overprescription. 
• Geographical Terrain:
  • Mobile Veterinary Units (MVUs) while successfully running in several States (Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal, etc.) with positive results but lacking its outreach, especially in geographically difficult terrains. 
• Sustenance & Starvation: 
  • Majority of livestock farmers have two to four animals per household. 
  • As approximately 7O% of India’s milk supply is sourced from farmers who own less than five animals, losses due to mastitis alone amount to a mills loss of approximately 10 liters per day per farm.
  • So for most farmers, death of or disease in livestock could mean the difference between sustenance and starvation. 
• Drug Distributors: 
  • The animal health issue is compounded by the growing presence of salesmen of drug distributors in rural communities. 

Steps Taken by the Government: 

• Livestock Health and Disease Control (LH&DC) Programme: Major focus has been on the ‘Establishment and Strengthening of Veterinary Services i.e., MVUs. 
  • The MVUs will be built on the doorstep delivery model, as stationary hospitals cannot be easily accessed by most livestock farmers. 
  • The MVUs also has space for essentials such as equipment for diagnosis, treatment and minor surgery, other basic requirements for the treatment of animals, audio-visual aids for awareness creation and GPS tracking of vehicles. 
• Artificial insemination (Al): For the purpose of achieving a pregnancy through in vivo fertilization by means other than sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. 
• Rashtriya Gokul Mission: To develop and conserve indigenous breeds of bovine population. It also works on enhancing milk production and to make it more remunerative to the farmers.
• National Livestock Mission (NLM): Launched in the 2014-15 to ensure quantitative and qualitative improvement in livestock production systems and capacity building of all stakeholders.
  • The scheme is being implemented as a sub scheme of White Revolution – Rashtriya Pashudhan Vikas Yojana from April 2019.
  • The mission is organized into the following four Sub – Missions:
    • Sub -Mission on Livestock Development
    • Sub – Mission on Feed and Fodder Development
    • Sub -Mission on Skill Development, Technology Transfer and Extension
    • Sub – Mission on Pig Development in North-Eastern Region

Way Forward:

• Provide Training to Health Workers: There is a need to make them aware and provide appropriate training.
• Counter Antimicrobial Resistance: There is an urgent need to look into this AMR problem and the government needs to take strict steps to counter it.
• Need to Adopt more MUVs: The main thrust for the near future will be on focused upgradation of veterinary health-care services, disease surveillance and training (CVE), and disease reporting in real time. 
  • The increasing adoption of MVUs across the country will lead to a surge in employment opportunities for veterinarians and assistants.
• Innovation & Technically Advanced: In the lockdown/s during the novel coronavirus pandemic, we witnessed innovations by start-ups that provided video consultation sessions between livestock farmers and veterinarians, along with apps that provide detailed information to farmers on livestock health and nutrition. 
• Inclusion of Private Sector: There is a great deal of scope for innovations and intervention by the private sector in the context of animal health and MVUs. 
  • Further, with the growing prevalence of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, the MVU model is poised to generate higher returns on investment. 

News Source: The Hindu