Ludhiana-09-Dec, 2011: “Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University is one of the newly established and leading universities for higher education in veterinary and animal science, “ stated Dr S. Ayyappan, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE)-cum-Director General (DG), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) here today while delivering his convocation address at first Convocation of GADVASU. Several members of the Board of Management were present on this occasion.
Dr Ayyappan said that the challenge before Veterinary & Animal Scientists is to increase the productivity per animal; so that absolute number of animals could be significantly decreased over a period of time. The concerted efforts needs to be taken regarding livestock management, feeding, housing, behaviour, adaptation etc. for improving health vis-à-vis productivity of animals. The landscape of agriculture and agri-business is changing very fast in India and it has thrown open a new challenge before Indian agriculture to increase income of the farmers.
Dr Ayyappan called for the diversification of agriculture in livestock and fishery sector. Globally, livestock in developing countries contribute up to 80% of agricultural GDP providing livelihood to some 600 million rural poor people. Livestock are the best insurance against the vagaries of nature like drought, famine and other natural calamities. Research needs to be undertaken on impact of climatic change on livestock and fisheries and their mitigation strategies.
Dr Ayyappan praised the crossbred herd of GADVASU- one of the best performing herds in India with 305-day lactation milk yield of more than 6000 kg. Artificial Insemination needs to be improved continuously and new technologies like embryo transfer; sexing, cloning etc. need to be standardized.
There is an urgent need for harnessing biotechnology and nanotechnology to develop ‘pen-side’ tests and development of potent, cost effective novel vaccines for control of common major infectious diseases of domestic animals and poultry.
In order to enhance fish production and productivity, Dr Ayyappan said ‘There is dire need of technological and administrative interventions like brood-stock improvement for quality seed production, replacement of fish meal with other locally available low cost feed ingredients. It is high time to utilize salt affected/ waterlogged areas for aquaculture.’
To achieve these targets, all the developing nations including India are required to make heavy investments for generating the required human resource with the requisite expertise in various areas of knowledge in veterinary, dairy and fishery sciences. The number of veterinary graduates produced each year is still far below the required level. He felt strong need to upgrade veterinary education and research in the country.
He congratulate all recipients of degrees and awards in the 1st Convocation and also their worthy teachers for imparting quality education, skills and values.
Presenting the convocation report highlighting research, teaching and extension achievements of the university, Dr V K Taneja, Vice-Chancellor, GADVASU, spoke about the future strategies. Research focus would be to develop cutting edge technologies to increase animal productivity while mitigating the effects of climate change on livestock productivity. For accurate and efficient disease diagnosis and treatment, excellence in clinical services shall be developed with super-specialty at species level and advancements in medicine, surgery and reproduction. Creation of School of Clinical Sciences, Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging Centre, School of Public Health and Zoonosis and an Animal Disease Registry and Tissue Bank for continuous betterment, critical care of animal health, for better understanding of disease process and to strengthen surveillance and epidemiology of important economic diseases would be established. Priority would be to generate cost effective technologies for benefit of farmers. Animal Husbandry Extension network for demonstration and dissemination of technologies and services would be further strengthened. More short term courses for training livestock entrepreneurs would be introduced to equip them with latest production and management techniques for harvesting optimum output from livestock. High density intensive aquaculture technologies like cage culture, flow through and re-circulatory aquaculture systems are also required to be introduced for higher production, in addition to saving on water and land resources. Validation and improvement of inland saline water aquaculture models for adoption in salinity affected areas shall receive high priority.
Dr Taneja further said that more emphasis is being laid on practical hands-on training and entrepreneurial exposure of students through experiential learning and internship training.
Dr. B.S. Dhillon VC, PAU, Dr. K.S. Aulakh Ex VC, Dr. S.S .Johal Ex VC, Dr. Pal Singh Sidhu, Shri Rahul Tiwari DC Ludhiana, Dr. Naresh Arora DIG, Dr. O.S.Parmar, Dr. K.S. Roy, DDr. K.K. Bakshi, Dr. D.R . Sharma, Dr. Kamaldeep Kaur, Dr. S. K. Jand, Dr. R. P. Sehgal, Shri. B. S. Randhawa and GADVASU Board of Management members namely Mr.Inderjeet Singh, Dr. B.S. Dhaliwal and Dr.V.K. Sood. were present on this occasion.
A total of 240 students were conferred degrees who have completed their programme since the inception of University. These were included 20 Ph.D, 39 M.V.Sc., 4 M.V.Sc./M.Sc. (Animal Biotech.), 3 M.F.Sc. and 174 B.V.Sc. & A.H. degrees. Winners of the Gold Medals include Amandeep Singh, Mamta Singh (Dr. S.C.Dutt Gold Medal), Namita Mitra, Mir Nadeem Hassan (Dr.S.S.Dhillon Gold Medal), Mamta Singh, Maninder Singh (University gold medals for B.V.Sc. & A.H.)
