What is Livestock Census?

 

What is Livestock Census?

The Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying under Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying attributes critical importance to livestock and to the collection and availability of up-to-date and accurate data related to livestock, as they are the vital component of rural economy.

For proper planning and formulation of any Programme meant for bringing further improvement in this sector and its effective implementation and monitoring, valid data are required at every decision making stage.

The Livestock Census is the main source of such data in the country. The livestock census is conducted across the country periodically since 1919. The census usually covers all domesticated animals and head counts of these animals are taken. So far, 19 Livestock Censuses were conducted in participation with State Governments and UT Administrations. The 20th Livestock Census was launched during the month of October, 2018.

The enumeration was done in both rural and urban areas. Various species of animals (cattle, buffalo, Mithun, yak, sheep, goat, pig, horse, pony, mule, donkey, camel, dog, rabbit and elephant)/poultry birds (fowl, duck and other poultry birds) possessed by the households, household enterprises/non-household enterprises were counted at that site.

Another important feature of 20th Livestock Census is it has been designed to capture Breed-wise number of animals and poultry birds. For the first time, livestock data were collected on line in 20th Livestock Census. Advance technology has been adopted to collect data through tablet computers. The National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Electronics & IT has developed Android based mobile application for data collection with various features such as data entry module to facilitate recording the data on tablets, web-based work application, local government directory codes etc.

The data captured by the enumerators have been verified through proper data checking process carried out by the supervisors through web based programmes.

Besides the initial scrutiny, another level of validation of data was also carried out with the help of a separate web-based data validation programme in which supervisors were allowed to correct any wrong entry. The Animal Husbandry Departments of States/UTs have been entrusted to conduct the field operations.

In the 20th Livestock Census, the data were collected and scrutinised mostly by para-veterinarians and veterinarians. In this whole Census operation more than 80,000 field staff were deployed for smooth conduct of 20th Livestock Census.

Training was an important component for 20th Livestock Census as for the first time field staff were required to operate tablet computers for such massive census operations.

Training was conducted at various levels starting from “All India Training Workshop for Trainers” at Delhi, followed by State, District level trainings.

Apart from training, Training Manual, Tutorial video, online e-learning classes etc. have been arranged.

The 20th Livestock Census was carried out in about 6.6 lakhs villages and 89 thousand urban wards across the country covering more than 27 Crores of Households and Non Households