Minister for Animal, Sheep Husbandry and Fisheries, Abdul Ghani Kohli today said that cross breeding of live-stocks can improve productivity and curb shortages besides encouraging rural populace to adopt poultry, fish farming and dairy as an alternative source of income.The Minister said this while conducting a day long tour of Samba and Kathua districts.In Kathua, the Minister visited Animal and Sheep Husbandry office, National Fish Seed Farm, Veterinary Hospital, Hiranagar, Goat Farm, Rajbagh, besides inspecting a number of cow sheds.During his visit the Minister enquired about the general profile of district including livestock population, total number of bovines, total poultry population, number of hatcheries, cattle and poultry vaccinations, milk production besides status of local as well as migratory livestock in the district.The Minister underscored the efforts of goat breeder Naresh Kumar of village Dhamal who took 25 number of Ewes from Sheep Husbandry department in the year 2012-13 and now owns 75 goats with significant improvement in his earnings.
The Minister directed the Assistant Director of Goat Farm, Rajbagh to ensure adequate fodder for the livestock in addition to adopting cross breeding to improve productivity. He further directed adoption of practices of flock shifting to address the problem of parasite infestation among goats.While visiting Fish Seed Farm, the Minister was apprised that against the target of rearing 24.50 lakhs fish seeds, 18.50 lakh seeds were so far reared. 3.40 lakh seeds were distributed for personal rearing where as 11.50 lakh seeds were introduced in ponds and natural water bodies under department’s supervision.While interacting with the officers, Kohli stressed for developing cluster villages under different schemes to create distinct model of development besides achieving optimum results.
Later, the Minister also distributed fish seeds among 13 progressive farmers of Kathua district who were earlier trained under different schemes of the department.Earlier, the Minister conducted an extensive tour of Samba district and reviewed performance of the departments. He was accompanied by Deputy Commissioner Sheetal Nanda, ADDC Vivek Sharma, Director Fisheries, R.N Pandita, Director Animal Husbandry, Dr Parveen Gupta, Director Sheep Husbandry, Dr Kanti Kumar Sharma, Joint Director Fisheries, S S Sharma, Joint Director Sheep Husbandry, Sanjeev Kumar, CAHOs, ADs, DSHOs, LDOs and other officials of the departments.The Minister visited Fish Farm Sangwal and directed PWD officials to fast track the upgradation works to promote community fish farming. He directed officials to focus on fish rearing and brooders. He said that the pond could be developed as tourist attraction and asked officials to submit DPR in this regard.
He also directed Director Fisheries to submit proposal for providing marketing facilities to fish farmers. He further directed DDC Samba to project more budgetary requirement for poultry and fishery sectors in CAPEX budget.The Minister also visited Poultry Demonstration Centre, Vijaypur which specializes in rearing of low-tech birds of egger type and helps in establishing backyard poultry units. He was informed that the centre has capacity of 4000-5000 birds in one cycle and during this financial year 9000 birds have already been reared. The Minister asked officials to ensure that regular monitoring of supplied ‘poultry units’ is undertaken so that it could be promoted as economically feasible activity.While visiting Veterinary Hospital, Samba and Ghagwal, the Minister interacted with the staff members. He directed the district administration to submit proposals for construction of culvert and boundary wall in consultation with Rural Development Department.Enroute several deputations called on the Minister and apprised him of various problems being faced by them. The Minster gave them a patient hearing and assured them of resolving their issues on priority.