OUR YOUNG VETERINARY GENERATION IN DETERMINATION MOOD

It is heartening to read that ultimately the veterinary students or junior veterinarians (as they have completed all course formalities) have been successful in conveying their demand to MP Government of scrapping cut of marks(76% and above) for recruiting state vet asstt surgeons under general quota. This agitation was joined and supported by the MP branch of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parisad where shri Upendra Dhakad played an active role .

The main grudge of these students was that while MP students receive comparatively less marks in their  professional examinations  , they are distributed liberally in private veterinary colleges in other states . Another complain is that many states restrict entry only for their domicile candidates whereas MP government is allowing all candidates from all the states,thereby keeping them in less advantageous position. As now their demand has been accepted, the MP Pashuchikitsha Chatra Sangh will undergo in dormant state. And this is happening since more than fifty years. I may cite three examples with which I have been deeply associated to explain my thinking .

1. MP VETERINARY ASSOCIATION : This was formed by the VAS , when both college and field veterinarians were transferable among respective posts . I remember that this association was revived some time in 1970 with formation of executives both from college and field; it was considered desirable to have college staff as they can speak more promptly , being not employees of  Vety Director. Dr Shukla was made Treasurer and a semi technical journal was also launched . Good collection was made and it was fixed at Allahabad Bank,Civil lines, Jabalpur (there is no one to look after FD). Later the activities were diminished and became negligible with the death of Dr Shukla .

2 TECHNICAL STAFF ASSOCIATION or TSA. When Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya came in existence in 1964 and different service conditions, pay scales, qualifications were framed for the teachers of the Agriculture University, this teachers association by name of TSA came in existence , some time in 1968 or so.The boost to TSA activities was given by the fact that below to Assistant Professors, there was a category of Senior Research Assistants which as per JNKVV statutes were teachers. Dr PG  Najpande gathered this group and agitated including hunger strikes that these SRA should also get pay scale of Assistant Professor- the minimum cadre of teachers in any university , in other words, both SRA and Asstt Professors have to be merged- TSA was successful in forcing JNKVV to  implement minimum pay of teachers to these SRA also (Rs 700-1600). This was perhaps biggest achievement of TSA. However, Dr Najpande was suspended by one vice-chancellor and  terminated , without authority by another vice chancellor (though his services were restored by the orders of MP High Court).No doubt with his retirement the TSA became defunct.

3.JVC ALUMNI ASSOCIATION :There were  attempts to start old boys associations at various times in the history of JVC. When it was celebrating its golden jubilee in Feb 1999 ( which actually should havebeen celebrated  in 1998) a fresh attempt was made to erect the association. On 18th Feb 1999, Jabalpur Veterinary College Alumni Association (JVCAA) was born by electing Prof AM Shrivastava ,former prof and head of Anatomy and me ( ICAR national fellow of Parasitology) as general secretary with liberty to selection our team as per choice.  One thing was firmly determined that we will do all such acts so that JVCAA should not met alike fates and should continue to work for alumni of this college. Among many things the executives worked relentlessly were :frame rules and regulations , formation of emblem ( Mratyo maa amratgamaya ), publishing ,two times, directories of the alumni, starting prizes for games to the students, launching gold medals for outstanding students and publishing JVC Alumni Association news letters quarterly and distributing free of cost to the alumni even outside Jabalpur. Two other important contributions of this association have been  to celebrate 8th July, each year as college foundation day (happily Mhow Vety College has followed the same) and another was agitation for establishing a Veterinary University in Madhya Pradesh , with its head quarters at Jabalpur.

As all of us know that all these three associations are dormant and there is no one to incarcerate them from the ashes. If we give a deeper thought to all these events , it emerges that a general mass come together when apparently some common injustice is done by the administrator. This led to emergence of a general leader or activist who is self determined, does not care for personal harms and identify a few who can follow his dictates. Since our leader is strong , he is able to achieve the goal in participation of the mass in the agitation.

It is a bitter fact that many Heads of the institutions do not reach to their top position on merit basis hence they start harming this leader by framing different charges and this is helped by some sycophants. Soon, the associations are captured by the sycophants whose only job is to dismantle such associations which opposes our administrators. Slowly, the associations went in hibernation and there remains no one to fight for just causes.

There are many left out problems which support my view point. For instance  Veterinary teachers are not getting any NPA in MP, No one will apply for ICAR National fellow as neither JNKVV considers him his employee nor ICAR accepts him on deputation, no specialized posts are created in the field, alumni association is without office  and JVCAA news letters are taken up by college administrators , publishing lot of photographs leading publishing cost of the news letter upto Rs 10,000 per issue ( it was started without any photo of any one and costing only Rs 500-1000 per issue).

The situation may change provided all the stakeholders take a serious note on the issue. It is of prime importance that our head of the institutions understand that these associations help them to show genuine problems and provide a chance to rectify them for betterment of the institution. The leaders of these associations should have  aim of working against social evils, strong enough to withstand problems and should not be materialistic.

However, it is becoming more difficult now a days as I have heard there are many other considerations including financial ones of selecting the administrators whose main purpose is of running the institution smoothly , without problems- doesn't matter what professional achievements are made by the institution.

NO COORDINATION BETWEEN MADHYA PRADESH GOVERNMENT & VETERINARY UNIVERSITY

One of  the main function of the alumni of any institute is to help in upgrading its infrastructure and prestige in the society. This is the status of alumni of MIT (having 74 noble laureates) and their contribution towards their Alma mater which determine fate of any big institute. There are many alumni who might not be aware about the old history of their Jabalpur veterinary college ,hence i am reproducing a few facts about the college with the request to use their power to upgrade the college in every aspect.
The first lacuna is creation of an office for JVC Alumni Association in the college campus where alumni may come together, sit and share a few experiences.Is it not disturbing that even after celebrating golden jubilee , this college is devoid of any alumni office with office facilities ?

Above is the head line of Today's (22nd January,2015) Dainik Bhaskar News Paper (Jabalpur) while informing about resignation of the newly appointed (joined 19th May,2014) vice chancellor Dr Amarjeet Singh Nanda who hails from Ludhiana. This Eminent scientist and  former Animal Husbandry Commissioner, Government of India is selected as Vice Chancellor of Veterinary University, Ludhiana and now preferring to leave Jabalpur. Obviously, he appeared less interested to remain at Jabalpur otherwise why he applied for vice chancellorship of Ludhiana  .While planning to leave Madhya Pradesh , he could not resist to express his feelings, though in sophisticated manner,about no coordination between Madhya Pradesh Government and  the University. This expression speaks a lot why no veterinary or agriculture university of the state is among top institutes of the country ? As JNKVV is the oldest Agriculture University of MP while Gwalior Agriculture University and Veterinary University are new entrants , we can understand the facts by knowing 50 years history better than commenting on the new universities whose outcomes are still not well known ; more over these new universities had been old constituent  colleges ,once upon a time, of JNKVV   ( e.g. Jabalpur veterinary college was part of JNKVV except few years back ) .

PANTNAGAR VS JNKVV :  If we go back into the history of Agriculture education in the state, the Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, (JNKVV) Jabalpur was inaugurated on 2nd October , 1963 by Smt Indira Gandhi, the then information minister of Government of India and was  third /or second (?) on American  land grand pattern Agriculture University in the country- the first was Pantnagar University and second(?) was PAU,Ludhiana.(But JNKVV came in operation w.e.f Oct 1964 with start of  semester system for 1964-65 BVSc batch) 

Pantnagar Agriculture University was established on a single campus basis which started its own Agriculture, Veterinary colleges but did not include either old Mathura Veterinary College or Kanpur, Bichpuri, Naini Agriculture colleges into its fold .This helped in consolidating  its resources and concentrating on specified goals by encouraging newly appointed faculty ( very young PG holders became Assistant Professors- a rare opportunity at that time).
On the other hand, JNKVV included all the state agriculture colleges ( Jabalpur,Indore,Gwalior,Raipur,Rewa,Sehore) and veterinary colleges (Jabalpur, Mhow) in its fold and thereby boosted itself the largest Asian Agriculture University.But this system worked as if JNKVV is an affiliated university and  inadvertently became responsible  for deteriorating education standards in other campuses . This was mainly because earlier all the Agriculture and Veterinary Colleges were having their own state level Professors in each department (generally three faculty in each dept- 1 professor, 1-2 Asstt Professor, 2-3 demonstrators) but with the formation of JNKVV they were reduced to Associate Professor level (many demonstrators, assistant professors preferred to go back to Veterinary department). Perhaps, greater harm was done by creating only one post of University Professor of the subject and that was allotted to Jabalpur , being main campus of the university, bringing all earlier state level professors under them - obviously they considered it as demotion and this could not auger well education and research atmosphere in outside campuses whose head was located  at Jabalpur. Further JNKVV was not allotted matching finances that can take up salary burden of enlarged staff as well as could create infrastructure for research and advance education.  

APPOINTMENT OF EMINENT PROFESSORS : It is not that attempts were not made to attract talented faculty members (from outside of Madhya Pradesh) to join as University Professors at Jabalpur. I still remember that Dr A Ahmed joined professor of Pharmacology, Dr PN Bhat, Genetics, Dr Ranjan , Nutrition, Dr BS Malik , Microbiology, Dr SC Dutt, Parasitology etc . Ironically, all (except Dr BS Malik) the professors left veterinary college Jabalpur one by one and as the history tells all of them attained important positions in veterinary profession confirming their inherited talent that could not be explored in M.P or  JNKVV . If you ask the reason of leaving Jabalpur , privately they will tell Jabalpur is a dead place where there is no atmosphere (or infrastructure) for research or expression of talents. These eminent professors were not vocal in voicing shortcomings (or more wise ?)  and considered it befitting to leave  JNKVV and join elsewhere. The best example I may cite is of Dr SC Dutt,(IVRI scientist)   who was a Rafi Ahmed Kidwai award winner , my Guru ( he guided me in my MVSc program ) and was really interested in teaching and research. But he also left JNKVV within four years and joined as ADG (education) at ICAR but did not like that job and was taken as Professor and Head of newly formed department of Parasitology, Ludhiana by Dr BS Gill, the then Dean faculty of PAU. I do not think if there have been any serious thinking why eminent teachers do not remain in JNKVV or the administration has ever  tried to improve  atmosphere of JNKVV .

JNKVV VICE CHANCELLORS : Its true that the state government tried to bring eminent persons of the country to join as vice chancellor of the university- first was Dr HM Patel, then Dr Negi , Dr SukhDev Singh. Sadly, none of them completed full term of vice chancellorship and left the university prior completing the term. Dr Chandraka Thakur from Bihar had controversial tenure of vice chancellorship in JNKVV and has to leave Jabalpur prior completing his term. As no outside vice chancellor remained in the university for full term or have shown improvement in teaching and research , the teachers of JNKVV agitated to appoint a local teacher as its vice chancellor with the slogan we want ' son of the soil'. To this one professor , sarcastically commented  that we should ask for son of the soil but not  night soil.

FREEDOM OF WORK OR AUTOCRACY :  As teaching and research is a highly creative profession, it can flourish only where a teacher considers that his genuine grievances are addressed correctly by a right authority and that he is not victimized and his talents are recognized by the authorities  . Unfortunately, this is the most important fact which JNKVV has failed to impress to  its faculty . Here the Board of Management, the highest executive authority , did not have any faculty as its member hence there was no method to verify vice chancellor's provisions . Secondly, Board's proceedings are confidential and no employee of JNKVV can meet its board member to raise its grievances as this will be treated against service conditions. Thus if you are aggrieved with university decision (or vice chancellor in real term) you have to apply to the Chancellor of JNKVV who remains mute in most of the  cases hence ultimately the employee takes  High court's shelter.This is the reason why there is maximum number of court cases in the university. In such circumstances , the vice chancellor becomes an autocrat , some time a whimsy administrator whose only aim becomes to pass smoothly his tenure .

No doubt vice chancellors should be given freedom to work without any interference from state government but simultaneously there should be a check so  that vice chancellor should behave in a transparent way . Certainly, JNKVV is not their private company. Unfortunately actions of the vice chancellor have never been transparent or beyond personal prejudice  .  I am referring only a few examples from the past which clearly show  functioning of JNKVV :

• When a vice chancellor was disturbed  by the President of Technical (teachers) Staff Association  he terminated him with out any such power . The vice chancellor is alleged to claim 'ham ne to terminate kar diya, ab ho ne do paresan ; jyada se jyada phir se restate he to hoga".
• In a Professor's interview, the vice chancellor (who happens chairman of selection committee) was pleading to select an inferior candidate over a meritorious,national award winner candidate by stating " We have to run the university where these meritorious teachers are useless - they are of no use except teaching and research" And much inferior person was selected as Professor over a meritorious award winner person.
•  The vice chancellor does not care to follow MOU signed by himself and there is no body to look after such facts. 
• Even  the university has not hesitated to present contradictory documents in the High court thereby eroding its image before the employees i.e. when a university can file a false document in the court of law how one can believe it will always tell truth in the board of management .
• When JNKVV faced financial crunch , it circulated a circular terming  "attending seminars, conferences, symposiums " as unproductive works.

TECHNICAL WORK : This is most important aspect where no coordination between state government and the university is visible. Its true that prior establishing JNKVV, all the veterinary and agriculture colleges were under their respective government departments. The main or only function of these colleges was teaching the subjects and there were frequent transfers of the staff between the department and colleges. But with the formation of JNKVV, there became a water tight compartment between  the department and college/universities. This was mainly because of requirement of master's or doctorate degree for university posts while these were not essential for departmental posts or promotions. 

However, this water tight compartment also resulted in no transfer of technology ,developed in the university to the department. It appeared that the department has no concern with what is developed in the university , neither teachers took interest in what is going on in the field. Rather , a miss trust developed between the two. While the field staff discarded all the scientific developments in JNKVV as 'academic exercise' not applicable in the field, the university staff alleged that field staff is not following technical knowledge while dealing the subject. And this no coordination between MP Government and Veterinary University is visible by many of those who have concerns with development of the state. I do not remember if  Director of Veterinary services came to the veterinary college and urged to solve some field problems or came to the staff to transfer some technology to the field. It may be pertinent to provide some examples where scientists developed the techniques but no government official ever cared to arrange for its transfer in the field or to improve the same :

Dr ML Mehta, Professor of Medicine and his associates developed a crude vaccine to protect the poultry against spirochaetosis ,  but this was not transferred in the field. 

BS Malik  ,Professor of Microbiology and his associates isolated a strain of Rani Khet virus which was important in protecting poultry against the disease (for this, they were awarded Hari Om Ashram Award) but state vaccine production center did not come forward for its field application .

Dr AG Khan, Professor of Poultry Science developed "Narmada XL" a colored bird for backyard poultry (again received ICAR awrad for this research work) but this was not taken up by the department to popularize in the villages.

I was awarded ICAR National Fellowship to work on different aspects of schistosomiasis. This work resulted in publication of a book on "Schistosomes and schistosomiasis in South Asia" with development of many new techniques.This work proved "Hatching method" a simple, cost effective method of diagnosis and triclabendazole a better proposition for treating the infection, in place of Anthiomaline. But till date , no one from the government side tried to contact me for transferring the knowledge to the field.

OTHER STATES : This situation does not appear to exist in all the states. There are states where a better coordination is existing and the government is fully utilizing the services of university staff. The chief minister of Haryana often called the staff of HAU to solve one or other problem of the state. Generally, one may notice one or two ministers visiting frequently HAU for consulting in technical matters. So is the case with Punjab or TamilNadu.

Even Rajasthan Government is telling their requirements and asking the staff to carry out research work in particular field. These are the efforts of the university staff and veterinary directorate that a book on "Anatomy of Camel" and other books on animal husbandry were published for the benefit of animal owners. 

Perhaps, Dr Nanda might be having  above feelings while expressing no coordination between MP Government and Veterinary University. One fact is clear from this expression. The state  can get only  a little  by appointing an eminent scientist as Vice Chancellor of a Veterinary/Agriculture University, unless until it does not review its action plan and does not improve coordination between state government and the university , as is happening in some progressive states.