The Punjab Government today started month long programme to vaccinate domesticated animals to prevent outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. The Government has issued instructions to provide free vaccination and appealed to the farmers to get their cattle vaccinated in the nearest veterinary hospitals.Disclosing this, Mr. Gulzar Singh Ranike, Animal Husbandry Minister said that the Department has launched a sustained and intensive drive throughout the state for mass vaccination of cattle and this campaign would continue in the month of December 2014.The Minister said that Punjab Government was fully alive to the necessity of checking the outbreak of Foot & Mouth Disease and therefore decided to fix accountability of erring employees in this case. He said that Foot & Mouth Disease vaccination has been brought in the ambit of Right to Service Act (RTS), where every aggrieved citizen has a right to complain to the authorities. He said that it has been mandated that employees must vaccinate the cattle within stipulated time and in the case of lapse as per the provision of RTS every farmers has a right to lodge a complaint with concerned SDM or respected Deputy Commissioners.
Ranike said that Chief Minister has issued explicit instructions that the department has to control the outbreak of Foot & Mouth Disease using all its resources as it was a communicable disease that can spread quickly even without contact. He said that Animal Husbandry Department has issued advisory to all the farmers to get the cattle vaccinated at the earliest as loss of cattle due to the disease would hit the economy of farmers as they would not be able to export meat, milk and other milk products.The Animal Husbandry department has already opened a helpline at 0181-2242335 and 0172-2701556 and farmers can also lodge their complaints on the website of the department i.e. www.husbandrypunjab.org or on e-mail [email protected].