Resolution on the Report of the administration of the Veterinary Department, Eastern
Bengal and Assam, in the year 1907-1908.
Extract from the Proceedings of Lieutenant-Governor
of Eastern Bengal and
Assam in the Revenue Department, No. 2595E., dated the 19th October 1908.
READ—
A Report of the Superintendent,Civil Veterinary Department, Eastern Bengal and Assam, on the
adminisaration
of the Veterinary Department in the year l907-1905, with the Director
of Agriculture's remarks thereon.
RESOLUTION.
The operations of the Veterinary Department in Eastern .Bengal and Assam,
during the year 1907-1908, have steadily expanded, and the small establishments
entertained have been continuously occupied with important work. The Department
is as yet in its infancy. It can only be recruited slowly as trained assistants become
available, and the recruits have naturally much to learn before they can be expected
to perform the new and onerous duties entrusted to them with any marked effciency.
At the same time there is a dearth of competent and experienced Inspectors to control
the newly-recruited Staff, and it will be some years before the Department can be
brought into full working order.
2. While action has been already sanctioned by the Government of India to
improve the position of Veterinary Assistants in this Province, and recruitment has thus
been facilitated, it is not yet certain whether some change will not be required in the
scheme for the supervision of these assistants. The nutter is under the consideration of
the Lieutenant-Governor, who attaches great importance to the effcient check of the
work done by Veterinary Assistants and to the encouragement given to them by the
certainty that any good work done by them is known and appreciated.
3. The greatest difficulty encountered by the Department is due to the absence of
an adequate agency for reporting outbreaks of cattle-disease. In the permanently-
settled districts the Revenue estabishment is small and the duty necessarily devolves
upon the Police, who have little time to devote to it. It has thus happened that
in certain localities, and especially in the remoter parts of the Sanderbans, serious
epidemics of cattle-disease have passed beyond the initial stage before the Department
has become aware of their existence. The people themselves are not yet alive to the
necessity for giving timely information. The expansion of the Department will, it is
hoped, do much, both directly and indirectly, to remedy this state of things. Difficulties
have also arisen from the absence of legal provisions for the segregation and destruc-
tion of suspected and contaminated animals in many parts of the Province where the
Glanders and Earey Act is not at present in force. The Act has during the past year
been extended to the Shillong-Gauhati cart road, the Shilling .Station, and the Gauhati
Municipality, and proposals for its general extension to the plains districts of the
Province are at present before Government. The question has recently been
considered by the Conference of Commissioners and Heads of Departments whose
recommendations on the subject will receive full consideration.
4. The Department has rightly devoted its main attention to combating the more
dangerous and contagious forms of cattle-disease, and much has been done by way
of inoculation. The grant made to the Surma Valley Branch of the Indian Tea
Association for the support of a veterinary establishment for inoculation purposes has
been fully utilised and the operations carried out by the Special Officer, Mr. McCalderon,
and his assistants, have proved eminently successful and have been highly appreciated
by the owners of cattle. The permanent establishment of the Department combined with
this special establishment have inoculated no fewer than 64,031 head of cattle. The
benefit resulting from these operations may be estimated from the fact that, while
6,315 uninoculated animals are known to have died daring outbreaks of cattle-disease, the
mortality among inoculated cattle amounted only to 42 5. The largest number
of inoculations were performed in the Sylhet district, namely, 15,409 for rinderpest,
6,554 for anthrax, and 484 for hœmerrhagic septicæmia.
5. In addition to the cattle inoculated, some 50,000 animals have been treated by
the Assistants and Inspectors in the Mufassil and in Veterinary Hospitals, and although
rigid inspection must be secured before any great reliance can be placed on such
statistics, they undoubtedly represent a large and increasing volume of work,