The 19th Livestock Census will begin in the Tamil Nadu on Saturday.
The initiative (September 15-October 15) will be driven by 14,384 enumerators and supervisors who will visit houses, enterprises and institutions in urban and rural areas to collect data on livestock, poultry and types of implements used in the animal husbandry sector.
The census, which forms part of the five-yearly All India Livestock Census 2012, is fully funded by the Centre. A sum of Rs. 10 crore has been released for the exercise which would provide data for framing policies and plan various benefits to farmers.
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The Commissioner of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences appealed for the cooperation of the people in an endeavour that would guide development of rational policies for promoting farm practices and welfare schemes for livestock.
Volunteers will collect information related to cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, ponies, donkeys, dogs, rabbits and elephants. They would also look for the types of mechanised equipment such as milking machine, fodder cutter, chopper and baler or dung collection/disposal machine. In the poultry category, the census would cover fowls, quails, ducks, turkeys and emu birds.
About 2 crore units would be covered in the State in the month-long exercise.
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The enumerator-households ratio is 1: 1500 in urban areas and plains and 1: 1000 in hilly and difficult areas.
The entire data would be made public once approved by the Central Government.
According to the 2007 census, the number of cattle was 111.88 lakh, buffaloes 20.9 lakh, sheep 79.90 lakh and goat 92.74 lakh.
The animal husbandry department is coordinating with revenue, education, women and child development, rural development, municipal and administration, agriculture and forest departments. In case of shortage of enumerators, educated unemployed youth will be deployed for data collection. Enumerators will also paste stickers on the units once they have completed their task to make the job of supervisors easier.