Punjab to get UK piglets meant for N-E states hit by African swine flu
PATIALA: About 250 high quality piglets imported from the UK under the National Livestock Mission for the northeastern states are now being sent to Punjab due to an African swine fever (ASF) outbreak in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
The NLM under the Union department of animal husbandry and dairying had imported 262 piglets from the UK in February for the northeastern states for high quality pig breeding in India. As per the programme, the animals were to be distributed among Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland, which had come up with a special pig breeding policy.
However, after the highly contagious ASF claimed the lives of hundreds of pigs and wild boars in the northeast, the NLM changed plans and Punjab was entrusted with the task of caring for them and to continue the breeding process. The animals, which at present are quarantined at the Animal Quarantine and Certification Service Centre in New Delhi, will be housed in government piggery farms in Punjab. Preparing to welcome them, the department of animal husbandry has initiated a sanitisation drive at Patiala district’s Nabha piggery farm, an innovative pig breeding centre.
Dr Inderjit Singh, director, Punjab animal husbandry department, said a formal communiqué from NLM to keep the animals in Punjab had already been received. “We have admitted to the terms and conditions of the project, which is completely sponsored by the NLM, while the department will provide all logistics to carry high-quality rearing of pigs in Punjab.”
The move, he added, will give a boost to pig farming in the state with large-scale breeding of high-quality imported breeds of pigs in the coming years.
“We have planned to shift these animals to pig farm at Nabha in Patiala district and have started creating space to accommodate them,” Singh said.