The College of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, Anand, felicitated Dr Amrita Patel, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) as the first woman veterinarian of Gujarat on Saturday.
State Agriculture and Cooperation Minister Babubhai Bokhiria felicitated Dr Patel at the launch of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the College here.
In her address, Dr Patel complimented the college for being awarded the Best Veterinary College of India earlier this year.
Emphasising the need for state governments to convert the stationary veterinary centres into mobile services, she said this is how the service can be provided at the farmers’ doorstep in remote areas. Fifty-three veterinary colleges in the country offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses face a severe manpower shortage impacting quality of veterinary education.
She said that NDDB’s curative and AI services needed to be phased out and professional service providers encouraged to take on this responsibility. Each state should establish a Centre to manage an animal production and reliable health information network with computerised facilities to process and analyse data. These centres should link up with a National Centre which compiles the data collected by the States and evolves strategies to monitor and develop the sector.
Dr Patel said the vast infrastructure being created in the country under the National Dairy Plan for the genetic improvement of cattle and buffalo breeds through Progeny Testing and Pedigree Selection programmes will require trained professionals particularly in population genetics, cytogenetics and molecular genetics.