The most-challenging factor during the pandemic is providing safety and security for life and livelihood. Of late, it’s been realized that livelihood is equally important as life which compels the Government to stay away from lockdowns and shutdowns, unless the situation goes out of control.
Though the second wave of the pandemic is much stronger than last year and infection is reaching a record high, the Government doesn’t want to take a chance on the economy by resorting to lockdowns andshutdowns.
A sizeable section of the community in urban and semi urban areas doesn’t have the required savings to sustain their livelihood for more than a month let alone, villages where people need to come out of their homes everyday in search of work. In order to provide livelihood to rural populace during and after the pandemic along with maintaining the tempo of economic progress in the State, the Government of Odisha has come up with some effective schemes in livestock development sector.
As traditional agriculture is becoming less remunerative over the years, there have been many takers for the livestock development schemes with special focus on poultry development, targeting assured gain within a short span of time.
These schemes run successfully in the State due to the incessant dedicated efforts of the veterinary doctors who work with the dual mandate of providing livestock healthcare and livelihood services. A substantial chunk of farmers, entrepreneurs, unemployed youth and women self help group members in the State became successful through broiler, layer and backyard poultry farming during last one year.
Accolades for the success garnered through successful implementationof the schemes must go in favour of the veterinary doctors who worked tirelessly during the pandemic. The irony is livestock sector doesn’t get the deserved sectoral priority even though it has the potentiality to save rural economy. Livestock contributes four per cent to State’s GSDP but, gets less than one per cent of the budget share. Eighty per cent of the rural families in the State own a species of livestock which provides them the much needed disposable income at the time of scarcity. Out of the total agricultural output in the State, 26 per cent comes from livestock sector.
Owing to meager budgetary allocation, livestock service delivery institutions in the State lack minimum infrastructure and basic amenities to deliver efficint services to public. Veterinary dispensaries at most places are in a shambles sans basic amenities like toilets, drinking water and conducive working ambience etc. Veterinary hospital and dispensary buildings look so decrepit as if they were the products of archaeological excavations. Adding to the woe, a veterinarian has not been provided with the necessary human resources at institution level which stands as an obstacle to manage institutional, door-step and digital services.
In spite of the negativities, a veterinarian in the State acts as an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent personality consuming negligible resources and producing high end results.
It’s needless to mention that the veterinarians in the State are deprived of their worth in the State. The Government always turns a deaf ear towards their legitimate demand of group-A status at entry level by citing irrelevant reasons.
While the Government has been kind enough to grant group-A status to medical doctors, engineers, OAS and OFS officers and mining officers; what’s the wrong in granting the same to veterinary doctors of the State? It is absolute callousness on the part of the Government to deprive a service cadre of its legitimate status which led to massive resentment in the cadre and thevets jumped in to agitation with show of black badge protest, pen downand mass leave.
It’s high time Government should realise the importance of the services of the veterinarians and fulfil their single- point demand of granting group-A status at entry level. It will go a long way in uplifting the morale of the veterinarians and rejuvenating their motivational level for successful implementation of Government schemes in order to provide livelihood and income enhancement of farmers during and after the pandemic.
(The writer is a veterinarian and a columnist, M: 9437313183, E-mail: madan.m3@rediffmail.com)