HYDERABAD, May 6: The Progressive Veterinary Forum warned on Tuesday that veterinary doctors would observe token hunger strike in all the districts on every Saturday and in the end stage a demonstration outside the Sindh Assembly if the government failed to solve their problems.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club the head of the forum’s action committee, Dr Abdul Ghaffar Sehto, appealed to the chief minister and livestock minister to announce service infrastructure for veterinary doctors and provide them facilities on the pattern of veterinary doctors of the Punjab.

Sehto said that no public service examination for veterinary doctors had been held since 1996, and no veterinary doctor had been appointed since then, leading to soaring unemployment among more than 2,000 veterinary doctors of the province and leaving livestock owners at the mercy of quacks for the treatment of their animals.

According to a survey, he said there were about 40 veterinary centres in each district of the province and out of them only 12 doctors were working while many a taluka centre had no veterinary doctor.

He said that they had been protesting for two years but in vain but now they would not sit idle. Mr Sehto informed that there were 808 veterinary centres, 71 dispensaries and expansion centres and 251 veterinary doctors in the province to look after these centres. While in the Punjab, veterinary doctors had been appointed at union council level, he added.

He said that total number of livestock in Sindh stood at 50 million of which 4.6 million were in Thar alone. In Sindh one doctor was looking after 100,000 animals, in the Punjab there was one doctor for 56,000 animals and in the NWFP one doctor cared for 65,000 animals.

He disclosed that no veterinary doctor was unemployed in Balochistan and in India one doctor was looking after only 12,000 animals.