Two days 14th Annual Review meet of Network Project on Buffalo improvement was inaugurated at Guru Angad Dev Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana (GADVASU), Ludhiana on 4th July, 2016. Dr. AS Nanda, VC, GADVASU welcomed the delegates from across the country and informed that buffalo is ‘Black Gold’ of the India. Buffalo is third largest livestock of India ranked behind cattle and goat but the milk contribution is about 54% in the total milk produced in the country.>
Dr R S Gandhi, Assistant Director General (Animal Production and Breeding revealed that under the network project, milk improvement programme is being implemented in seven breeds of the country out of 13 registered breed of buffalo of India. Dr Inderjeet Singh, Director and PC (B) ICAR- Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes Under the project 7.50 lakh semen doses from superior bulls were distributed in the country. About 15000 Artificial Inseminations (AI) being carried out in murrah breed at Karnal, Hisar and Ludhiana per years for production of high yielding buffaloes. More than 2 lakh AI’s is also carried out in Pandharpuri buffaloes in Maharashtra, Karnatka. The Jaffarabadi which is the heaviest buffalo breed of the country from Junagadh, Gujrat is also reared at Junagadh, University. The buffalo gives as much as 25kg milk per day.
Dr Baljinder Kumar Bansal, Director livestock farms said that in the review meet Dr Vineet Bhasin, Expert from ICAR also participated for evaluation of the work done by the principal investigator of all the 18 centres of country.
Dr A K Pandey, Incharge network project briefed about the activities carried out under the project. Dr Simerjeet Kaur briefed about the buffalo farm at GADVASU and told that superior quality semen and bulls are provided by the university to the farmers at very nominal price for improving productivity), Dr Harish Kumar Verma, Director of Extension Education and Director Research told that apart from milk production the meat of buffalo is also exported form the country and India is earning foreign exchange to the tune of 29000 crore by exporting the meat to about 65 countries of the world.
