Indian Council of Agricultural Research

Animal Science Division of ICAR coordinates and monitors research activities in its 18 Research Institutes and their Regional Centers. Deputy Director-General (Animal Sciences) is the Head of the Division assisted by three Assistant Director Generals (ADGs) in disciplines of Animal Health, Animal Production & Breeding and Animal Nutrition and Physiology and supported by two Principal Scientists and one Senior Scientist. The work on Dairy and Animal Products Technology is also being looked after by ADG (ANP). The Division has 2 National Research Institutes which are also Deemed Universities, 5 Central Research Institutes, 01 National Bureau, 4 Project Directorates and 6 National Research Centers. The Division coordinates 7 All India Coordinated Research Projects and 7 Network Research Programmes. In addition, 2 Outreach programmes and 4 mega seed projects (poultry, sheep, goat and pig) are also being operated in different parts of the country at different ICAR institutes, State Agricultural / Veterinary Universities and Non-Governmental Organizations.

Vision

Development of technologies to support production enhancement, profitability, competitiveness and sustainability of livestock and poultry sector for providing food and nutritional security to Indian masses.

Mission

Facilitate need based research in ongoing and emerging areas of livestock and poultry sector to denote productivity increase, reduce gap between potential and actual yield, and to prepare the country for the challenges of globalization.

Thrust Areas

• Molecular signatures for indigenous livestock resources
• Embryonic losses and improvement in reproductive efficiency
• Exploitation of genetic resistance through marker assisted selection for disease management
• Buffalo and goat genomics
• Stem cell research for animal health and production
• Improvement of utilization of low quality roughages through in vivo and in vitro manipulations
• Biochemical markers to assess the micronutrient status of animals
• Nutrigenomics
• Probiotics/ prebiotics for enhancing nutrient utilization
• Manipulation of Green house gases emission from livestock
• Adaptation strategies climate change through Shelter Management
• Development of diagnostics and immuno prophylactics for various diseases using biotech and nanotech tools
• Pharmacogenomics and dynamics of new generation and indigenous drug formulations
• Transgenic chicken and pigs for pharmaceutical / nutraceutical production
• Allele mining for abotic stress and development of molecular markers
• Residual analysis of environmental and industrial pollutants; mycotoxin and mycotoxicosi.
• Development and improvement of technologies for value addition, shelf life enhancement and quality assurance of livestock and poultry products
• Nutraceutical / functional foods

Strengths

Manpower

Total number of Scientists as per cadre strength: 1019

Total number of Scientists in position: 778

Infrastructure

Farm and animals

Research farms for cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, camel, equine, yak, mithun, rabbit and poultry exist in species specific institutes spread all over the country.

Laboratories

State of-the-art laboratories were established at the Institutes for carrying out basic and strategic research in cutting edge technologies in the areas of animal genetics and breeding, nutrition, physiology and reproduction, animal health and animal products technology.

Specialized facilities

Bio-safety and bio-containment laboratories, nuclear technique laboratories, semen evaluation and quality control, residue analysis, feed analysis, embryo transfer laboratories, molecular biology, rumen biotechnology, milk and milk product processing unit, meat and meat processing unit, wool processing unit, model dairy plant, vaccine production unit, germplasm and DNA banks.

Human Resource Development

Two deemed universities offer graduate, post graduate and doctoral degree programmes in various disciplines of veterinary, animal sciences and dairy science including national diploma.
(For details visit www.ndri.nic.in and www.ivri.nic.in)

Advanced tailor made training programs are offered for researchers, extension personnel, teachers, students and farmers periodically.
(For details contact species specific institutes through website)

National and International Collaboration

Collaborative programme in some of the advanced areas like biotechnology and molecular biology in animal science, are taken up with premier National and International Institutions.

Achievements

Animal Genetic Resource Management

• 90% of well descriptlivestock and poultry breeds characterized and breed descriptors developed through systematic surveys in their native tracts.
• Animal Breed Registration Authority established (NBAGR, Karnal) and 129 breeds of livestock and poultry registered and given accession numbers.
• Developed methodologies and technologies for in-situ and ex-situ conservation of indigenous livestock and poultry.
• Information system on Animal Genetic Resources of India (AGRI-IS 2.0) developed.
• Status of A1/A2 alleles, the most abundant variants of β-casein gene delineated for the first time in Indian cattle and buffalo breeds.
• Breed diversity analysis of recognized 10 buffalo, 13 poultry, 22 goat and 6 sheep breeds completed.
• Gene repository established at the NBAGR, Karnal has 50 random DNA samples from 6 breeds of cattle, 4 breeds of sheep, 22 breeds of goat and 15 breeds of poultry and also 76,721 frozen semen doses from 6 species (cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep, camel, yak).  The Somatic cell bank has skin fibroblast cell lines from breeds of sheep (5), goat ((3), buffalo (2), cattle (2), camel (1) and rabbit (4)
• Improved twinning by more than 20% in Malpura x Garole crosses by introgression of Fec B gene from Garole breed

In Animal Production

• ‘GARIMA’ world’s first cloned buffalo calf produced through hand guided technique.
• Developed crossbred strains of cattle, Karan Swiss, Karan Fries and Frieswal for high milk production.

• Layer productivity enhanced to 300 eggs / year / bird.
• Broiler body weight increased to 1.5 kg in 35 days.
• Graded Murrah buffaloes developed with 2,200 kg milk yield / lactation.

• Dual purpose poultry strains developed for rural farming with more than 170 eggs/annum.

• Standardized artificial insemination in mithun, yak, camel, goats, pig and equines

• Improved strains of sheep for fine wool, carpet wool and mutton developed.
• State-of-the-Art semen testing and freezing laboratory established at CIRB, Hisar.
• Shelter management for small ruminants designed and developed

Animal Nutrition and Physiology

• Database on Animal feed resources for different agro-climatic zones of the country developed.
• Area specific mineral mixture for different agro-ecological zones developed

• Complete feed block technology developed using locally available unconventional feed

• Cost effective detoxification technologies for oil cakes developed.
• By-pass nutrient technology for high yielding bovines commercialized.
• Urea-ammoniation for improving utilization of poor quality roughages developed.
• Bio-availability of micronutrients from different sources studied.
• Designed and developed feeding mangers for small ruminants.
• Crystoscope for timely heat detection in cattle and buffalo developed.

Animal Health

• Eradication of Rinderprest in India.
• Indigenous technology developed for foot-and-mouth disease vaccine production.
• Live attenuated vaccine for sheep and goat plague (PPR) developed.
• Diagnosed avian influenza and controlled it by continuous surveillance.
• Developed recombinant DIVA kit for differentiation of FMD virus in infected and vaccinated animals
• Inactivated pentavalent  blue tongue vaccine using indigenous virus strains developed.
• FORGIN Model for precise forecasting of Heamonchus contortus in sheep for semi-arid and arid zones of Rajasthan
• Sandwich ELISA kit for detection of FMD virus



• PPR vaccine for small ruminants



• Technical and scientific support to National FMD control programme provided.
• Achieved Hundred percent import substitution for FMD diagnosis and control.
• Diagnostics and vaccine for equine virus infection developed.
• Diagnostic kit for gastro-intestinal parasites developed.

In Animal Products Technology

• Low cholesterol ghee, Mango Lassi with extended shelf life, Ghee, fortified with herbs developed.
• Indigenous technology for production of rasmalai, kulfi, kheer mix, gulab jamun mix with longer shelf life developed.
• Adopted and modified traditional milk products technology like kunda for commercial production.
• Various poultry meat products like chicken chunkalona from spent hen, chicken idli,nuggets, patties, pickle and kababs developed
• Value added wool & fibre products from sheep and yak developed




• Value added camel milk products (Kulfi, Gulab Jamun, paneer) developed. 
• Kits for detection of adulteration in milk developed

Commercialization of technologies

• Area specific mineral mixture for different agro-ecological zones and complete feed block using non conventional feed resources.
• By pass protein technology for high yielding cattle.
• PPR vaccine
• Crystoscope for timely Artificial Insemination.
• Pentavalent bluetongue vaccine using Indian viral strains.
• FMD and HS adjoined oil vaccine.
• Equine influenza vaccine.
• Thermostable IBD vaccine.
• EHP 1 vaccine.
• Diagnostic kits for FMD surveillance.