Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh while addressing a programme at National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics (NIVEDI) in Bengaluru today, urged upon ICAR to have major programs to improve the indigenous breeds as the products from the indigenous cattle also have health attributes to humans. He said that empirical evidence suggests that our indigenous breeds of cattle are relatively less prone to diseases as compared to exotic and cross-bred. He further said that the efforts should be made to improve indigenous stock in terms of production and productivity. He mentioned that the best indigenous breeds like Gir, Tharparkar, Rathi, Sahiwal etc. have better heat tolerance, feed conversion efficiency and disease resistance.
Radha Mohan Singh said that in the XII Five Year Plan, the institute was renamed as the National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics to expand its research activities with 32 AICRP centers covering all states and union territories of the country. Shri Singh mentioned that the role of scientists of NIVEDI continues to be in the prevention, control and eradication of diseases to help maximize animal production and safeguarding human health from those diseases transmitted by animals and their products using risk analysis data and precise diagnostics. He urged the institute to research and study the aspects which make the indigenous breeds resistant to diseases.
Singh complimented NIVEDI for developing excellence in several frontier areas in veterinary and animal sciences in terms of specialized laboratories, human resource development, technology generation and dissemination. He said that as the role of animal health and production has an important place for sustainable livestock production systems in improving the country’s economy, NIVEDI has a role to play in this direction.
Singh congratulated the Indian Council of Agricultural Research for setting up of a world class facility for research on epidemiology of animal diseases at National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology and Disease Informatics (NIVEDI) in Bengaluru. In addition to development of diagnositics, Shri Radha Mohan Singh said research partnership between the public and private sector is also essential to achieve faster progress and dissemination of technology to the end-users. Thus, there is a need to link these two sectors to have their activities complemented in a “Public Private Partnership” mode. He expressed hope that the institute will make use of the new opportunities to give a new direction to their R&D and other service sector activities in a huge way. Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, Union Agriculture Minister told “ The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” He urged all to join hands to provide quality health to the animals.