CAITLE AND BUFFALO

CAITLE AND BUFFALO
EFFORTS FOR DEVELOPMENT Various central and centrally-sponsored schemes are being implemented forgenetic improvement of cattle and buffalo with a view to enhance the per capita availability of consumption of milk through increased milk production. Efforts are also made to protect and preserve the indigenous cattle and buffalo in their native tract, which are facing threat of extinction. The elite animals are selected and registered on the basis of their performance for production of superior pedigree bulls, bull-mothers, frozen semen and frozen embryos for future breeding improvements.

The National Project for Cattle and Buffalo Breeding has envisaged 100 per cent grant-in-aid to implementing agencies and aims at promoting about 14,000 private artificial insemination (AI) practitioners and building an annual frozen semen production capacity of 66 million doses.
A Central Herd Registration Scheme for identification and location of superior germ plasm of cattle ahd buffaloes, propagation of superior germ stock, regulating the sale and purchase, help in formation of breeders' society and to meet requirement of superior bulls in different parts of the country is also being implemented. The government has established Central Herd Registration Unit in four breeding tracts, i.e., Rohtak, Ahmedabad, Ongole, Ajmer.

The seven Central cattle breeding farms at Suratgarh (Rajasthan), Chiplima and Sunabeda (Orissa), Dhamrod (Gujarat), Hessarghatta (Karnataka), Alamadi (Tamil Nadu) and Andeshnagar (Uttar Pradesh) are engaged in scientific breeding programmes of cattle and buffaloes and produc­tion of high pedigreed bulls for National Project for Cattle and Buffalo Breeding Programme besides providing train­ing to farmers and breeders.