|
1. Livestock Services: Origin and Development
Historically the origin of livestock services had invariably been in the domain of the Governments in most countries of the world. Progressive economic development over the centuries, however, engineered a growing diversity in the manner in which the services are delivered in individual countries. While in most developed Nations the bulk of the responsibility for delivery of livestock services, particularly those that are private goods, have been successfully transferred to the private sector, many developing nations continue to shoulder it as Government responsibility.
In India, all aspects of livestock services and their delivery are the responsibility of the Governments and it had been so over the five decades of planned development of the Indian Economy. Government is the sole provider, with minor exceptions, where Milk Cooperatives offer limited services to their members in circumscribed areas and NGOs play marginal roles. The Governments, through their Departments and Parastatal Bodies, structure the services as direct action.
The Governments' continuing burden of livestock services in India, however is not the outcome of any economic compulsions, but was essentially a policy option by successive Governments deciding to follow the socialistic philosophy for development, making the public sector responsible for the welfare of the people.
There was never ever an attempt by the Governments to categorise the services on their economic merit, until 1994, when the Steering Group for National Livestock Policy appointed by the Central Government, reviewed the sector. Many of the services that the Governments provide are essentially in the realm of private good, some are exclusively public good in nature and yet others are a mix of public as well as private good in varying degrees. Under the prevailing economic and development environment in India the services falling in the three categories are:
Livestock Services in Public and Private Interest
|
Sl.
No. |
LS Services(Public Good) |
LS
Services (Mix of Public / Private Good) |
LS Services(Private Good) |
|
1 |
Prevention & Control of Diseases |
Vaccinations |
Veterinary Services |
|
2 |
Disease Surveillance |
Disease
Reporting |
Artificial Insemination Services |
|
3 |
Animal Quarantine & Certification |
Zoonosis Control |
Clinical Diagnosis |
|
4 |
Drug Quality Enforcement |
Livestock Research |
Drug / Vaccine Manufacture |
|
5 |
Vaccine Quality Enforcement |
Livestock Production support |
Manufacture Livestock Products |
|
6 |
Food / Meat Inspection |
|
Marketing Livestock Products |
|
7 |
Disease Control Act Enforcement |
|
Marketing Livestock |
Free or heavily subsidised veterinary and artificial insemination services to the livestock owners, had all along been an important component of overall livestock development strategy of the Governments, in all States. The growth in veterinary institutions under the Government had all been for delivery of curative veterinary services and artificial insemination.
Curative veterinary services generate only private good and do not influence the endemicity of animal epidemics, while preventive veterinary care lead to control, containment and eradication of animal epidemics, progressively enlarging public good for the entire nation.
2. Public Funds used for Private Benefits
Public funds provided to the State Departments of Animal Husbandry, under Central and State plan and nonplan budgets - over Rs.200 billion during the past five decades post independence - had all been spent largely on clinical veterinary care and on provision for artificial insemination services, both in the realm of private good. Prevention and control of animal epidemics, on the other hand had not received the focus or funding it deserves, (until recently in the National Project for Rinderpest Eradication - NPRE). The task wise distribution of the Professionals in the Departments (rough estimate for ten States) gives some indication of the priorities of the State Departments of Animal Husbandry:
Task wise Distribution of Professionals in the AH Departments
|
Sl.
No. |
Tasks |
Per cent |
|
1 |
Administration |
15.40 |
|
2 |
Production of Biological Products |
1.20 |
|
3 |
Disease Investigation |
0.80 |
|
4 |
Disease Control |
2.70 |
|
5 |
Extension / Training |
3.30 |
|
6 |
Livestock Development Schemes |
20.00 |
|
7 |
Veterinary / Animal Health Services |
56.40 |
|
8 |
Veterinary Research |
0.20 |
|
Source: Veterinary Council of India 1994 - '95. |
India still has many animal epidemics; across all species and recurring incidence of the epidemics (most importantly Foot & Mouth Disease) ravage the livestock economy of the country. Livestock enterprise in India is predominantly the endeavour of the small holder and is extremely livelihood intensive. Over 70 per cent of rural house holds own livestock and earn supplementary incomes out of them.
Though losses due to livestock diseases had not been precisely quantified, estimates are that the total annual loss is around Rs.100 billion - some 10 per cent of the total output value of the entire livestock sector in India in 2001. Over 80 per cent of all livestock and almost the entire Indigenous poultry in the country are owned by the small / marginal farmers and the land less; and they are the ones - the poorest of the poor in the country - who bear the brunt of these avoidable losses.
Over 85 per cent of the State Non-plan Budget and some 70 per cent of the Plan Budgets are consumed for salaries, travel and transport costs. The Department has to make do with the remaining 15 per cent of the Non-Plan and 30 per cent of the Plan Budgets for all development costs and cost of instruments, medicines and consumables required for the services.
Corroboration of sorts, of the gross inadequacy of the monies spent on veterinary pharmaceuticals by the States comes from the trade figures of the Indian Veterinary Pharmaceutical Industry for the year 1997. Turn over of the industry for the year was Rs.5000 mln. The total market share of institutional buyers (made up of animal / poultry feed mills and State Departments of Animal Husbandry) was only 25 per cent, while the remaining 75 per cent was accounted for by prescription sale through the retail trade.
Biological products, parasiticides and feed additives are prime products for institutional sale and they account for some 20 per cent out of the 25, leaving just 5 per cent accounting for veterinary pharmaceuticals bought by all state governments in the country: some Rs.250 mln for the year, together for all States and Union Territories.
3. Need for Reforms in Services Delivery
With the progressive liberalisation of the Indian economy, time is now ripe for both the Central and the State Governments to look at their role and relevance in the livestock sector in general and livestock services in particular.
The overwhelming presence of the Governments in clinical veterinary services and artificial insemination, both exclusively private goods; and the comparatively marginal role that Governments play in disease control and prevention - an area of enormous public good and where public activism is direly needed - is a case in point.
In the Indian context redefining the role of the Governments in livestock sector means primarily, reducing direct action by the Governments. Direct action is called for and is justified when markets for specific services have either failed to work well - which may happen because of public good or other externalities, or have failed to emerge at all.
The mandate of the Departments of Animal Husbandry today is Animal Health Care as a welfare measure, with emphasis on curative veterinary care. The Governments believe that the service is free and that the benefits reach the livestock owners.
The IIMA study 2000 has established that the service is not free, that farmers incur substantial costs for availing of the service, more often than not home delivered by the Government Veterinarians in the their private capacity. The case of the AI Service too is more or less the same. Together for the delivery of these services the Departments commit over 75 per cent of their professional staff and almost the entire para professionals.
Whatever be the subsidies built into the services, they are not targeted towards the poor. We have evidence that livestock owners pay Government Veterinarians and AI Technicians, charges close to market prices for their services. The distributions of the demand for their services are, never the less, uniform across all economic groups. We also know that livestock owners are willing to pay reasonable prices for satisfactory services. The willingness to pay too is uniformly distributed among all economic groups of users.
Under these circumstances there is no rationale or logic for the Governments to continue Clinical Veterinary and AI Services any more as direct action. These services are private goods, they involve no moral hazard and Governments restructuring their delivery is not likely to diminish demand for the services or to interfere with their consumption at socially optimal levels.
Mechanisms to distance the Departments from the day to day delivery of animal health care and breeding services should therefore be set in place so that the Departments are no longer required to provide clinical or curative veterinary care and artificial insemination services.
The mandate of the Departs of Animal Husbandry should therefore be changed from animal health care in its present form, to preventive veterinary care - prevention and control of diseases. The Department will then be working constantly for the control, containment and eventual eradication of animal epidemics.
Clinical veterinary care and Artificial insemination services are the two most important services that the States now provide to the livestock owners. Farmers have to take the sick animal to the veterinary hospital or dispensary for availing of the service. This costs him time and money, depending upon the nature of the illness as well as the distance involved.
Artificial Insemination services too are in the same genre, but worse. Services are provided in the centre and the farmer has to take the animal to the centre for AI. The transport to the centre itself is a major stress for the animal and stress is anti-pregnancy.
The average conception rate for AI in the country according to the report of the Steering Group of the GoI (NLP) is less than 20 per cent, meaning that the subsistence farmer has to bring his animal to the centre five times for a pregnancy. And less than 10 per cent of the breeding animals are covered under AI, in almost all states.
4. Door Delivery of Services as Paid Inputs
In actual practice over 75 per cent of the cases treated and artificial inseminations, are home delivered by the veterinarians and paraprofessionals of the department as private arrangements, with service fees charged at market prices. The livestock owners consider these as essential services and have no objection at all to paying for them.
In order to make these services improve their quality, reach out to those whom it seeks to serve and become accountable, the Government should progressively make clinical Veterinary Care and AI, mobile practices operating within their existing jurisdictions and delivering the service at the farmers' door-step, as paid inputs.
State Departments of Animal Husbandry have very large field institutional networks for delivery of livestock services; all of them manned by government employed Veterinary Professionals and Para-Professionals. The hospitals and dispensaries have only a token supply of medicines and the animal owner invariably has to procure medicines and consumable for treatments from the local trade.
The best part of the day however (from 8 in the morning to 5 in the evening) the professionals are required to be present in the institution, severely impinging on their practice and restricting their reach and coverage of farmers. Village communities in all states report that they have restricted access to veterinary and AI services, and irregular home delivery, from the government institutions, as professionals can practice only after office hours.
Veterinary hospitals and dispensaries are an aberration in the livestock services delivery system, perpetuated by the veterinary profession in India; and encountered only in South Asia. Veterinary Hospitals and Dispensaries have no role to play in farm animal practice, as treatment for farm animals have to be delivered animal-side.
An animal receives exactly the same treatment unmindful of where it is treated - in the hospital or in the farmers' home, unlike in the case of human medical practice. World over government or private veterinarians deliver services cow-side (home delivered).Hospitals and dispensaries are relevant only for pet animal practice. Allowed to practice full time the same number of professionals in government service can cover five times the number of farmers for services delivery, as they do now.
The alternative would be to permit the serving veterinarians and paraprofessionals of the department (livestock assistants / livestock inspectors), to become full time mobile practitioners, with their own arrangements for supplies and transport (motor Cycles) for their practices, home delivering both Veterinary and AI services as paid inputs at market prices.
Hospitals, dispensaries and other centres would then become redundant and the non-professional staff in them, adjusted elsewhere. The State Governments should make the necessary changes in the legal and regulatory framework to enable the government employed veterinarians and paravets to practice as government servants and to accept fees at market prices, as their incentive and private income.
The practices will reduce costs for farmer because of the economy of scale; reduce expenditure for the government on account of saved supply cost, salary savings of a considerable number of non-professional staff in these institutions, establishment costs and the costs of day-to-day management of the widely scattered departmental institutions.
5. Village Level Services Delivery
Institutional set up for services delivery in the state departments of veterinary services / animal husbandry are located at the block level and have to be shared by several villages: often by over 100 villages in the case of veterinary hospitals / dispensaries and some 25 - 50 villages in the case of livestock aid centres manned by stockmen / livestock assistants. The distances between these institutions and most villages exceed 3 - 5 km and in many cases over 10 km.
For the day-To-day management of their household livestock enterprises, farmers need Skills and Services, which do not need a Veterinarian or a Livestock Assistant.
These Skills and services are: veterinary first aid for all species, vaccinations against prevalent livestock diseases for all species, deworming of animals and fowls and deticking / delousing and no-cost / low-cost technologies like termite harvesting for poultry feed, pod feeing for small ruminants etc. These skills can be transferred to farmers themselves and the services can be home delivered to them by trained Village Level Workers (preferably young livestock farmers).
There is thus a need for a Third Tier added to the 2 Tier Services Delivery Mechanism of the State Departments of Animal Husbandry / Veterinary Services, structured under the Provisions of the Veterinary Council Act & nurtured by these Departments. While the first two tiers are in the government as part of the Department of Animal Husbandry / Veterinary Service, the third tier should be outside of the government, private, independent, self-generating and village based.
The third tier, Village Link Workers, one per panchayat should be attached formally to the Block Veterinary Officer and he will be officially responsible for the Professional and Ethical Supervision of the Link Workers. The Link Workers of course will be Private, Independent and Autonomous. There will be no remuneration paid to the link workers by the government or any other agency and he / she will earn their livelihood from service delivery and their own farm incomes. The link workers however will be reimbursed travel costs when they are called by the controlling Veterinarian or for the mandatory monthly meetings.
Trained village youth (young men and women livestock farmers: Village Link Workers) door delivering essential but minor livestock services like veterinary first aid, vaccinations against prevalent livestock diseases, deworming of animals and fowls and deticking / delousing of livestock / poultry, as paid services, can enormously help livestock farmers in the day to day management of their household livestock enterprises by eliminating disease risks and mortality, as well as cutting down production losses due to diseases. These are therefore services constantly in demand in villages and village based solutions for their delivery, therefore are also the best and least cost solutions.
6. Structuring of the Three-Tier for Livestock Services Delivery |
