chandigarh the punjab government is struggling to provide basic medical care to domestic animals in the state despite substantial increase in the user charges of veterinary hospitals and dispensariespunjab has 1367 civil veterinary hospitals and 1485 dispensaries run by the governments animal husbandry and dairy development department which caters to livestock population of about 86 lakhmedicines in these veterinary centres are dispensed free of cost for which the owners of animals are charged registration fee between rs 10 and rs 50 most of the veterinary centres in the state are so poorly stocked that they are doing without antibiotic antiseptic dressing and thermometer forcing people to buy even basic drugs from private medical storesveterinary doctors said despite irregular and insufficient supply of medicine to these centres for some years now the government has failed to address the issue the department recently supplied only three types of medicines ticks medication dewormer and turpentine oil that too in limited quantitypunjab state animal husbandry officers welfare association has been taking up the issue with the department but in vain the association president dr gurcharan singh said shortage of medicines has severely impacted the services of veterinary hospitals and dispensaries causing great inconvenience to publicpeople who bring their animal for treatment to our centres are not financially welloff due to nonavailability of medicines they are forced to buy medicines from private stores at high rates he addedpunjab animal husbandry and dairy development minister tript rajinder singh bajwa said the department was aware of the situation and corrective steps are being taken medicines in sufficient quantity will be provided to all the veterinary hospitals and dispensaries shortly assured bajwathe department has set stiff targets for opd and other services which the doctors must meet and are added in their annual confidential report acr however due to shortage of medicines the doctors are struggling to meet these targets according to annual opd target each doctor has to examine 2500 animals in a year how will the doctors achieve the target when there is drop in the number of people bringing their animals to government centres due to nonavailability of medicines asked a doctor