The Union Government is piloting the use of the Bharat Pashu Dhan software in Uttarakhand, which aims at unique data-tagging of vaccination of animals, on the lines of COVID-19 inoculation data uploaded on the CoWIN app.

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Government sources told CNBC-TV18 that over 26 crore dairy animals have already been identified under the Information Network for Animal Health and Productivity (INAPH), which captures real-time data on breeding, nutrition and health services of dairy animals. The vaccination and artificial insemination data present in the database is the world's largest, even as round-wise data collected gets transferred to cloud storage and live entries continue getting done, to the database.

Government estimates peg a population of 14 crore goats, 19 crore cows, 11 crore buffaloes, 8 crore sheep and 1 crore pigs in India.

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The Centre has also embarked on an all-India carpet vaccination programme for all dairy animals to prevent a disease outbreak among cattle, like the lumpy cow disease which led to loss of cattle in many states last year. Sources said that while the lumpy cow disease has been successfully controlled using the Goatpox vaccine, 24 crore out of the targeted population of 25.8 crore cattle, have already been covered under the second round of the foot and mouth disease vaccination drive. In this, inoculation's near-universal coverage of over 95 percent is well beyond the herd immunity levels needed against foot and mouth disease.

With a target of six rounds of total vaccination, India aims to become foot and mouth disease-free by 2030. The government is aiming to vaccinate 4 crore heifers (female calves) annually against the zoonitic disease brucellosis, 1 crore pigs against classical swine fever and is targeting control of the pesti petit ruminants disease in goats and sheep.

Government sources said that under the Rashtriya Gokul Mission scheme, the department of dairy and animal husbandry has approved an entrepreneurship project for establishment of breed multiplication farms by making available high genetic merit heifers of cattle and buffaloes breeds to farmers to fulfill their need of general shortage of such animals.

Each entrepreneur will be provided with one-time central assistance of 50 percent capital subsidy up to Rs 2 crores. A total of 49 breed multiplication farm (BMF) projects have been approved and the government has released the subsidy for 16 of them, so far.

Also Read: Ample availability of milk, some concerns on butter stocks in India: Sources

Part 3 of 5-part series on India's dairy industry