8 REPORT OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE OF VETERINARY RESEARCH,
Until the calendar year 1924 was drawing to a close, the income derived
from the sale of products had always been annually considerably below
the budgeted recurring expenditure of the Institute, despite the fact
that from the commencement of the financial year 1922-23 the prices
charged for these products were raised 50 per cent. to close up the gap
between income and expenditure. The Inchcape Committee reported
early in 1923 that steps should be taken with effect from the commence-
ment of the following financial year to place the Institute on a self-
supporting basis, as it saw no reason why the Central Government should
produce sera and vaccines for the use of local Governments at a financial
loss. With the verified figures before them of a number of lean years
(1923-24 and preceding years), the authorities at the Government of
India were undoubtedly much perplexed to find a solution to this prob-
lem of self-support, and after considering various expedients, such as a
limited expansion of the Izatnagar Institute, to effect economies in manu-
facture, resolved, in June, 1925, to prevent, at any rate, a very marked
departure from it by issuing instructions that for three years the annual
budgeted expenditure of the Institute should be limited to Rs. 7 lakhs,
except in years of unusually high demand for serum, when a supple-
mentary grant would be sanctioned, the amount of which would naturally
be covered by the increased receipts. There was every reason, however,
at that time to believe that a solution to the problem would be found in
the steps already taken in technical administration at the laboratory.
The causes of the decline in revenue over the lean years have already
been analysed in preceding Reports, wherein it has also been explained
that a close study of the incidence and severity of rinderpest in India
over several years showed that the disease underwent periodic fluctua-
tions in gravity, approximately three-yearly periods of intensification
alternating with three-yearly periods of abatement.
The reserve stock of anti-rinderpest serum at the Institute at the
commencement (April 1st) of the financial year 1919-20 in reality only
amounted to 1,87,437 doses, even though at this time of the year the
quantities in reserve were usually highest, after the close of the season
of manufacture then undertaken on a relatively limited scale on the
plains, at Kurgaina, near Bareilly, to supplement the Muktesar produc-
tion. Moreover, the capacity of the laboratory to manufacture rinder-
pest serum at the time was not deemed to exceed approximately 30 lakhs
of doses annually, and to meet exceptionally heavy demands throughout
the country negotiations were set afoot in 1921 to open up a branch
laboratory in Southern India to manufacture serum for that part of the
country. Following upon this period of high demand, covering roughly
the years 1919 to 1921, there followed a period of considerable natural
abatement in rinderpest lasting until towards the end of 1924, with corre-
spondingly low demand, and coincidently a time when administrative
authorities throughout India were much exercised with financial strin-
gency, and when the veterinary authorities in some Provinces were dis-
turbed by the delegation of powers to finance in large part measures for
combating disease to district and municipal boards. Hence, although