The number of cases treated at veterinary institutions has increased over the years with the increase in initiatives to improve veterinary medicine. The number of cases has gone up from 223.26 lakh in 2010-2011 to 314.41 lakh in 2013-2014,” said Dr Suresh Honnappagol, animal husbandry commissioner at Union ministry of agriculture and animal welfare, in Chennai on Friday.
“Veterinary science is an important division that is growing every year and human resources in this division is the need of the hour. The Veterinary Council of India was considering increasing the intake from 60 to 100 at certain veterinary colleges,” Dr Honnappagol said, while delivering the convocation address at the 18th Convocation of the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS).
He added that effective interventions and policies have helped bring down the incidence of disease in the country. “One such step has been the setting up of animal quarantine stations at Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai and the National Animal Disease reporting System (NADRS) with 7,500 nodes to help with reporting disease outbreaks across the country,” he elaborated. He encouraged the students to work towards ensuring food security and addressing malnutrition.
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Of the 513 graduates, 309 received their degrees and diplomas in person at the convocation ceremony. Two hundred and three BVSc and Animal Husbandry, 17 BTech (Food Technology), 5 MTech (Food Technology), 58 MVSc, 24 PhD and two PG diploma students received their degrees from Governor Rosaiah.