Rinderpest, although the most important, is only one of the serious infectious diseases to which India. livestock are liable. In discussing the measures which should be undertaken to deal with it, sufficient bas been said to show that the suppression of epidemics must make large demands on the professional skill, the energy and the judgment of the officers in charge of the operations and that the type of education which such officers should possess is of a different order from that necessary for officers competent to deal with the diseases and injuries that are met with in ordinary veterinary dispensary practice. It will also be evident that to cope successfully with epidemic diseases, the number of officers employed by provincial governments must be largely increased. But as no staff, however large and skilled, can be fully effective, unless Government have the power to control the spread of infection, we recommend that a Contagious Diseases of Animals Act should be passed with a view to ensuring a uniform procedure in dealing with contagious diseases. The Act should empower local governments to apply by administrative order to any tract such of its provisions as may be applicable in the circumstances of the case. The provision of veterinary aid in India is at present totally inadequate. Apart from a few practitioners in the large towns, there are no veterinary surgeons in private practice in India. There are in civil employ about 32 veterinary surgeons in the Indian Veterinary Service and 52 in the provincial services whilst the number of veterinary imspectors and veterinary assistant surgeons in 1927 was about 1,400. Several of the superior staff are employed in teaching and other duties. Thus some 33 only are available for the control and treatment of disease and of this small corps of officers, less than one-half are licensed to practise veterinary medicine and surgery through possessing the diplonia of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. These figures sufficiently show the inadequacy of the existing arrangements for controlling contagious diseases and attending to animals suffering from ordinary ailments and from injuries. Veterinary aid is supplied by permanent dispensaries, by itinerating veterinary assistants or by both methods. We recommend the establishment in each district of a central veterinary hospital having accommodation for in-patients with a number of dispensaries serving subdivisions of the district. To meet the obvious shortcomings of the single dispensary serving a large tract of country, we recommend that the staff attached to dispensaries should be increased and men sent out to tour in the surrounding districts. The value of most veterinary dispensaries would, in this way, be more than doubled. Our view is that the control of contagious disease must rest with the provincial Government whose staff, so far as is practicable, should consist of qualified veterinarians. The duty of providing a local veterinary service for treating diseases not scheduled as contagious and dealing with operations and wounds should, when the necessary arrangements can be made, rest with local bodies. It is in the light of this distinction that we proceed to frame our proposals for the future organisation of the veterinary departments. The first necessity is a very substantial increase of veterinary officers of all grades. The aim should be to provide at least one veterinary assistant surgeon for every 25,000 cattle and one qualified veterinary surgeon for each district, who would have on an average about 600,000 cattle, in addition to other livestock, in the area under his charge. There are 272 districts in British India, so that, on this basis, the number of Provincial Service officers required would be in the neighbourhood of 300, allowing provision for leave reserves. The number of veterinary assistant surgeons would roughly be increased fourfold, that is, to about 6,000 officers. The co-operation and assistance of Indian States would also be necessary. If their staff were on the same scale, the total number of qualified veterinary surgeons in the employment of Government and that of Indian States, including the staff of the veterinary colleges, and officers employed in supervising duties, would be over 400 and the total number of veterinary assistant surgeons about 7,500. The organisation which we would therefore propose is as follows. In each province there would be a Chief Veterinary Officer who might be styled Director of Veterinary Services. He would be in administrative control of the veterinary work in the province. The principal of the veterinary college should stand in the same relation to the Director of Veterinary Services in the province as the principal of an agricultural college to the Director of Agriculture. The posts of Director and Principal should be scheduled as selection posts outside the cadre of the provincial veterinary services. It is most important that the holders of these posts should be officers of ability and strong personality and, if need be, the provincial Government should be prepared to recruit an officer from outside the country. The rate of pay attaching to both posts should be reconsidered. Under the Director of Veterinary Services in each province there would be deputy directors in charge of circles. These officers would be members of the present Indian Veterinary Service or of the new superior provincial veterinary services. Ordinarily vacancies in the latter service will be filled by promotion from members of the existing provincial veterinary services. The duties to be performed by the deputy directors will be responsible and vacancies should be filled by direct recruitment whenever an officer with the requisite abilities is not available from the existing Provincial Service. We suggest that an appropriate scale of pay for the new superior provincial veterinary services would be the existing scale of the Indian Veterinary Service. Underneath these administrative officers would be qualified veterinary surgeons, members of the provincial veterinary services and the aim should be to provide a qualified vete inary surgeon for each district. The primary duty of these services would be the control of epidemic disease but it would also be entrusted with the supervision of dispensaries and of touring veterinary assistants. The present scale of pay of the provincial veterinary services, Rs. 250 to Rs. 750 per mensem seems adequate. Beneath this grade would be the subordinate veterinary services consisting of veterinary assistant surgeons in charge of the veterinary dispensaries and the veterinary work in the area commanded. The grade of veterinary inspectors, where it exists, should be abolished when the duties of inspection can be taken over by duly qualified veterinary surgeons. We do not recommend the complete provincialisation of the Veterinary Department. The subordinate veterinary services will continue, as at present, to be lent by Government to local boards. Progress in the direction of transferring greater responsibility to local bodies in veterinary matters, though desirable, will have to be made more gradually. When the complete control of the veterinary work, apart from that connected with the control and prevention of epidemic diseases, is entrusted to them, the assistance given by local goverr ments to their branch of veterinary aid should take the form of a conditional grant-in-aid which might be given on a pro rata basis. It should be made a condition of the grant-in-aid that local bodies should look to the provincial veterinary services for advice and inspection and should consult the Director of Veterinary Services in regard to all appointments. In the mean time, local bodies should be consulted in regard to appointments, transfers, promotions, punishments, and dismissals of veterinary assistants employed in their dispensaries. When the complete control of the veterinary assistant surgeons employed by them passes to the local boards, it will be necessary to create a veterinary reserve corps of selected veterinary assistants to deal with contagious diseases. Experienced veterinary assistants would be selected for membership of this corps by arrangement with the local bodies under which they are working. This, it is hoped, will rer der it possible to deal effectively with contagious diseases without interfering with the work of the dispensaries. For the training of veterinary surgeons, that is the provincial veterinary services and the assistant veterinary surgeons, two entirely distinct courses of study are required with different entrance requirements and different classes at all stages. The framing of a suitable curriculum for the training of the latter class in the existing veterinary colleges should be referred to a body of experts. Special prominence should be given in the course to the anatomy and the diseases of cattle. For the provincial veterinary services, that is, for the district veterinary surgeons, the course which should be settled by confererce between the university and veterinary authorities concerned, should extend over a period of five years from matriculation and should end in a degree. We do not recommend the establishment of an all-India veterinary college nor the expansion of the Muktesar Institute as an educational centre. We consider that the most satisfactory method is to train candidates for the provincial veterinary services in all provinces at one of the existirg veterinary colleges. The additional expenditure involved in adapting the selected college to undertake higher veterinary education should be met by the Government of India. A short period at Muktesar should be included in or supplement the course at the selected college. We recommend that the course of training for the provincial service should at present be limited to candidates nominated by the Government of India, provincial governments or Indian States, and that they should receive suitable stipends from the authority nominating them during their period of training. Officers on the teaching staff of the veterinary colleges should be expected and encouraged to undertake research work. In order to carry out successfully the training of the greatly increased number both of veterinary surgeons and assistant surgeons which our proposals require, it is most important that the principals and the staff of the colleges should be picked men. The staff should form part of the new superior provincial veterinary services. As a rule, special recruitment will be necessary but officers in the ordinary line of the Indian Veterinary Service and the new superior provincial veterinary services should be eligible for appointment. In order to secure officers with the requisite qualifications, it may be necessary to give special pay personal to the individual officer and based on his qualifications and experience. At present, veterinary research is mainly concentrated at the Imperial Institute of Veterinary Research at Muktesar. We consider that this Institute is all that is required to deal with general problems of veterinary research and that any extension of central research in the immediate future should be provided by such additions to the staff and equipment of Muktesar as the nature of the work contemplated may call for. The Director of the Institute should be selected for his scientific qualifications and should be a man of outstanding position in the profession. As the number of superior posts at Muktesar is so small, we do not consider that any advantage would be gained in present conditions by the formation of a Central Veterinary Service. When an appointment, including that of Director, falls vacant, the officer recruited to fill it should be given a scale of pay in accordance with his special qualifications and experience. In view, however, of the very heavy administrative work which the manufacture of the various se a and vaccines involves, we consider that the Director should have attached to him, an officer with administrative experience to relieve him as far as possible of administrative detail. It is also important that an Institute such as Muktesar should have a thoroughly competent staff for secretarial work and estate management. The expenditure on research in Muktesar should be separated as far as possible from that on manufacturing operations and we consider that the provinces and States should share in any profits from the manufacture of sera and vaccines in proportion to their purchases. We recommend that the administrative control of the Muktesar Institute, at present vested in the Agricultural Adviser to the Government of India, should pass to the Director of the Institute, whose position, vis-a-vis the Muktesar Institute on the one hand and on the other the Council of Agricultural Research, would be precisely that of the Director of Pusa to his own Institution and to the Council. The Council of Agricultural Research should have a small Standing Committee to deal with veterinary matters with powers MO Y 392-3 |