Comparative Analysis of Minor-veterinary Services Rendered by Paraveterinarians in Four Different States of India: Stakeholders’ Perspective

Para-veterinary personnel are eyes and ears of public veterinary services which makes them an important part of animal health care and animal husbandry extension delivery system in India. With acute shortage of veterinarians and paravets, in order to meet various criteria such as availability, accessibility, acceptability, and affordability, assessing the role performance from stakeholder’s perspective could be impetus for competency development of paravets. The present study was conducted in four districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan respectively. It was found that role performance of paravets was found better for productive services, followed by preventive services, curative and diagnostic services and least for extension and outreach roles under miscellaneous services. Study revealed that paravets were good in interpersonal and cultural adaptivity proficiency, followed by individual task proficiency and individual problem solving adaptivity. Individual task proactivity and management domain proficiency need further improvement. It was observed that extent of proficiency was low in fodder enrichment with silage and ration formulation, latest trends in animal breeding, feeding and reproductive management, and rise in production due to mineral mixture and concentrate feeding. When scenario of para-veterinary services among four districts were analysed, it was most proficient in Hisar district, followed by Jaipur and Ahmadnagar district, and least proficient in Mathura district. Therefore, it can be inferred that, proficiency and performance of paravets needs urgent action from new policies.