On 1st March, students of BSc and Engineering stream visited National Research Centre on Camel (NRCC) and National Research Centre on Equine (NRCE) Bikaner. NRCC is a Premier Research Centre of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.
The University consider research as a means of higher learning and therefore, intends to include research at every level of the course curriculum. Thus to encourage the students and faculty members to undertake research projects, the visit was made with an objective to give an insight to students of the ongoing research projects on the desert fauna and envision areas for proposed research work which they will take up in upcoming semesters of study.
At NRCC, the students accompanied by faculty members were further guided by Dr. Debendra Kumar, who took them around the institute. He first took them to the museum on camel and explained about the various research and development work going on in the institute. He explained that the camel is an important animal component of the fragile desert eco-system. With its unique bio-physiological characteristics, the camel has become an icon of adaptation to challenging ways of living in arid and semi-arid regions. After Camel was made the state animal, extra focus is now being given to the genetic improvement of camel. Some of the thrust are of research in the institute included:
- Genetic improvement of indigenous camels through conventional and molecular means
- Selection for faster growth and early maturity
- Selection for development of camel as a dairy animal
- Improvement of reproductive efficiency in camel
The students were then taken to the molecular biology lab of Dr. Sarat Mehta and finally to the farm were the camels are reared. While returning they were treated with ice cream made from camel milk.
Next they visited the National Research Centre on Equines which is also a premier institute established under the aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research for conducting research on equine health and production in Hisar. The NRCE Bikaner is a satellite campus created in 1989 for conducting researches for improving the technologies for optimization of reproduction and work performance of the equines. The Centre has the responsibility on generation of technologies for augmenting equine performance in order to uplift the socio-economic status of poor equine owners. Dr. Jitender Singh, Farm Manager took us around the institute. He also explained some of the on-going research activities like:
- Breed characterization and in situ conservation of various indigenous breed of horses.
- Exploiting importance of equine draught power for economically weaker section of the society.
- Development and perfection of artificial insemination techniques in horse production using frozen semen of true to breed indigenous stallions for the consortium of threatening species in India.