PESHAWAR, Nov 15: To provide farming households with services for getting improved breed of livestock, a memorandum of understanding was signed with the Fata Development Programme – Livelihood Development (FDP-LD) here at Fata Secretariat on Monday to strengthen artificial insemination services in 172 insemination centres situated across the tribal areas. The programme costing Rs250 million will benefit at least 7,000 households in Fata.

It will fully equip these artificial insemination centres with storage facilities for both semen and liquid nitrogen to improve services to farmers, says a statement issued by the Fata directorate here.

It was stated that the provision of 25,800 doses of sexed semen to Fata Secretariat’s Directorate of Livestock and Dairy Development would produce some 7,700 pregnancies of improved breed livestock, to ultimately increase milk production by an estimated 21,000 tonnes a year.

Speaking on the occasion, Jamal Nasir, acting additional chief secretary Fata, said that the programme would improve the immediate potential of dairy animals in Fata and enhance the level of skills of technical staff of the directorate.

He said that the FDP-LD trained 30 unemployed veterinarians and provided them with mobile artificial insemination clinics.

These veterinarians were now providing improved services to local farmers in south Fata.

Training for health workers Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Programme, Fata, conducted a six-day training workshop on essential maternal and newborn care (EMNC) for the health service providers of Mohmand and Bajaur agencies.

MNCH Fata arranged the workshop in collaboration with the Unicef. Dr Sajida, Dr Wali Khan and Dr Ayub Khan of Agency Headquarter Hospital Khyber were the master trainers of the workshop, said a statement issued on Monday.

Lady doctors, lady health visitors, charge nurses and labour room assistants from the two tribal agencies participated in the workshop.

They were imparted training concerning essential care of mother and child during delivery so that they could help reduce maternal, newborn and child health mortality and morbidity in Fata.

MNCH Fata coordinator Dr Parvez Kamal said on this occasion that they had chalked out a plan to build the capacity of rural health centers and train the health service providers of Fata to achieve millennium development goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 in Fata health sector.