New Delhi:
Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday released 'IndiGau', India's first cattle genomic chip for the conservation of pure varieties of indigenous cattle breeds like Gir, Kankrej, Sahiwal, Ongole.
This indigenous chip was developed by the concerted efforts of scientists of the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NAIB), Hyderabad, an autonomous body under the aegis of the Department of Biotechnology.
''This is an occasion for triple celebration — Celebration of India's cow and cattle, celebration of calibre of India's scientists and above all celebration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat,'' Singh said. Singh said 'IndiGau' is purely indigenous and the largest cattle chip of the world.
It has 11,496 markers (SNPs), more than that placed on 777K Illumina chip of US and UK breeds. The minister said this chip will have practical utility in government schemes to achieve the goal of conservation of Indian breeds with better characteristics and help towards doubling of farmers' income by 2022. To further the use of this chip in generating phenotypic and genotypic correlations, NIAB has entered into a collaborative agreement with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), DBT Secretary Renu Swarup said.
The NIAB has also entered into an MoU with private industry to generate capability within India for designing and making SNP chips.
These may be very low density SNP chips in the beginning but slowly this technology can be further strengthened for bigger chips, making India self-reliant in this field, the DBT added