SIALKOT, Oct 25: Acute shortage of medicines in all veterinary hospitals, dispensaries, centres and laboratories in Sialkot district has forced livestock owners to purchase medicines on their own.

Veterinary medicines have been in short supply for the last 10 months and owners of 192,738 Neeli Ravi breeding buffaloes, 78,233 Cross-bred cows and thousands of other livestock are suffering great hardships on that account.

Requesting anonymity, some officials said they had informed livestock owners to purchase all veterinary medicines from their own pockets.

Except for the vaccination, they said, the department had no budget for veterinary medicines. They claimed that the allocated funds of Rs2.9 million had already been lapsed while further budget allocations had still not been made.

The health department with a limited stock of vaccination, in case of any epidemic spread among the livestock, would not be able to tackle the adverse situation.

In August 2005, Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi had taken a serious notice of non-availability of veterinary medicines in all hospitals of Sialkot district. But neither the livestock department nor the district government had taken any practical step to ease the situation.

In the same month, Punjab Livestock department secretary Babar Yaqub Fateh Muhammad and director-general Sajjad Zaheer Malik had conducted a departmental probe against the department’s highups for their failure to purchase the required medicines.

Meanwhile, the affected villagers on Tuesday protested against the livestock department for non-availability of veterinary medicines in every district’s hospital. They also chanted slogans against the officials concerned.

Protesting villagers told reporters that Rs2.9 million funds had been allocated some one year ago for purchasing veterinary medicines. They alleged that these funds were lapsed owing to the mismanagement and poor planning by highups of the Sialkot EDO (Agriculture) offices.

Under the devolution plan, the livestock department in districts had been given in the command and control of the agricultural department. This strategy has added only public grievances, besides ruining the working of both departments.

Some livestock officials are of the view that agriculture authorities are unable to run the affairs of the livestock department for being short of knowledge or experience.

During the last 15 months, no relief has been provided to the people by these two departments. The people alleged that highups of the agricultural department were obliging their favourites by getting them appointed in the livestock department.