GOVERNMENT OP BIHAR AND ORISSA.
REVENUE DEPARTMENT.
No. 5601/Vety.—51 R.
RESOLUTION.
Dated Ranchi, the 15th September 1917.
READ—
The annual Report of the Civil Veterinary Department, Bihar and Orissa, for the year 1916-
17 and the review thereon by the Director of Agriculture, Bihar and Orissa.
Mr. Quinlan was in charge of the Department throughout the year. He
spent 215 days on tour, visiting hospitals and dispensaries, inspecting the work
of the Itinerant Veterinary Assistants and attending outbreaks of epidemic
diseases of cattle.
2. The number of students from Bihar and Orissa admitted into the Bengal
Veterinary College at Belgachia was 17 as compared with 27 in the previous
year and 11 in 1915-16. Although the local bodies offered, a larger number
of stipends and in several cases increased their value, there was no great
response and no noticeable improvement in the standard of education of the
successful applicants. Out of 21 boys, including four plucked students of the
previous year, who appeared at the First Examination, only 14 passed, while
of the five Government stipends for boys from Chota Nagpur and Orissa,
three remained vacant owing to the lack of suitable candidates. These results
are disappointing, but service in the Department is not at present sufficiently
attractive to induce students to join the college in any considerable numbers,
the pay being low and the work exacting. A scheme for the reorganization
of the Department has recently been drawn up and matters will, it is hoped,
improve when the scheme is sanctioned and comes into force.
3. The arrangements for reporting outbreaks of epidemic diseases appear
to have worked satisfactorily on the whole. As in previous years, Rinderpest
and Hemorrhagic Septicæmia were the chief causes of cattle mortality. The
former was responsible for 19,144 and the latter for 5,584 out of the 26,107
deaths from contagious diseases of all kinds reported during the year.
Rinderpest appeared in most of the districts of the Province, the number of
outbreaks reported being 1,829, of which about half were attended to by
Veterinary Assistants. The number of outbreaks of all kinds of contagious
diseases brought to the notice of the staff was 4,513, and help was given
in 1,850 cases as compared with 1,631 in the previous year. The proportion
is still unduly low, but the Department is handicapped by an inadequate staff,
and it was frequently found necessary to draft Assistants to distant districts
for considerable periods, while less serious outbreaks occurring in their own
jurisdictions, had to remain unattended. The Lieutenant Governor in Council
agrees with the Superintendent that the absence of a reserve of Veterinary
Assistants is a serious drawback to effective dealing with outbreaks and he
hopes that within a few years it will be possible to fill the vacancies in the
sanctioned staff from among the students now under training at the Bengal
Veterinary College.
4. It is satisfactory that in spite of the difficulties above mentioned, there
was an increase of 30,000 in the number of animals inoculated against con-
tagious diseases by the Departmental staff. The Superintendent bears testi-
mony to the help given in connection with this work by district officials and
by many leading zamindars and important cultivators, though some opposition
was experienced from landholders in the Patna and Gaya districts. The
scheme for inoculating cattle through the agency of a special staff of locally