Till 1969, there existed only one association for the Veterinarians of Kerala namely the Kerala Veterinary Association. Realizing the need to have a separate service organisation, in 1969 the Kerala Veterinary Surgeons Service Association was formed. From then onwards, the Kerala Veterinary Association has functioned as a professional body working on the lines of National IVA. But as years passed, the activities of Kerala Veterinary Association lost lustre. It was at this juncture that veterinarians from all parts of the state assembled in early 1978 and laid the foundation for the formation of a new professional association. An ad-hoc committee was formed with Dr. Sivasubramaniam as the coordinator to materialize the formation of the new professional body. 0n 09.12.1978, the veterinarians of the state assembled at the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Mannuthy, and unanimously elected a central executive committee with Dr. K.J. Simon and Dr. Bharathan Namboodiripad as the first president and General Secretary, respectively.
The formal inauguration of the association was celebrated in a befitting manner on the 11th and 12th of May 1979, at Town Hall, Thrissur. The two-day programme included a scientific seminar and an Animal Husbandry seminar. Sri. P.K. Vasudevan Nair, Chief Minister, Sri. K.P. Prabhakaran, Health Minister, Sir. C. Achutha Menon, Ex Chief Minister, Sri. N. Kaleeswaran, Vice Chancellor of KAU, Dr. P.K. Nambiar, Director of Animal Husbandry, and many other distinguished guests graced the function. A souvenir was also released to commemorate the inaugural function.
It was proposed to affiliate the association to the central body and also to be registered as a professional body under the name IVA, Kerala branch soon after the organization set up was completed. Unfortunately, this could not be materialized before the inauguration. The secretary of national IVA, vide letter dated 09.10.1979 accorded affiliation to our association as IVA, Kerala Branch. With the new name, IVA Kerala was registered under S. No. 271/1979 as a professional society.
The constitution and byelaw of Indian Veterinary Association, Kerala was resolved to register the association at the meeting held on 12.05.1979. Dr. T.R. Bharathan Namboothiripad, Dr. K.V. Athman and Dr. K.N. Aravinda Ghosh are the signatories of the first constitution and byelaw printed and published.
The prestigious rabies control programme implemented by the Association, with the concurrence of Government was started in the year 1990. The programme was implemented throughout Kerala for five years.
The land where in the existing Veterinarians Building is situated at Ayurveda College Junction at Thiruvananthapuram was bought in 1982 by KVSSA and a joint deed was registered in 1984 by IVA and KVSSA agreeing joint privileges and responsibilities and formation of building committee for the day-to-day management and maintenance. The foundation stone of the Veterinarians’ Building was laid on 28th September 1993 and the first phase of construction work was completed and the building was formally inaugurated on 28th February 1994. In 1998, our associations were able to purchase another building at Thrissur, name Veterinarians Square. Later on, office building named as Vets Home was established at Kottayam and building with conference hall and accommodation facility named Vets Square was opened at Kalpetta, Wayanad.
The continuing Veterinary Education (CVE) programme by IVA, Kerala was formally inaugurated on 26th July 1995, at Thiruvananthapuram by the then Hon. Minister for Animal Husbandry Sri. P.P. Thankachan.
IVA Kerala started printing and publishing the magazine Mruga Sampath, for distribution among its members in the year 1989. Later this publication was renamed as “Animal Wealth” and recast as JIVA – Journal of Indian Veterinary Association. The first issue of JIVA was formally released in the AGB, 1996 at Thrissur by the then Hon. Minister for Animal Husbandry, Sri. E. Chandrasekharan Nair.
IVA Kerala started commemoration of World Zoonoses Day from the year 1996.
From January 2000 onwards, the association started printing and publishing IVA newsletter for distribution among its members. From 2019 onwards, the newsletter was replaced by a bimonthly magazine named ‘The Veterinarian’ which incorporates technical and scientific articles, literary works of members and association news.
On 8th March 2000, the Lady Vets Forum was formed and formally inaugurated at Kozhikode by Smt. P. Valsala, renowned writer.
The official website of IVA Kerala, www.jivaonline.com was launched on 5th October 2000 at Ernakulam by Dr. Babu Joseph, the then Vice-chancellor of CUSAT. Later this website was dedicated exclusively for JIVA and a new domain named as www.ivakerala.com was started for the association. Later, JIVA website was moved to a new domain named, www.jivaonline.net.
Commencing from the year 2002, auditing of IVA Kerala accounts by a chartered accountant was introduced and the AGB 2002 passed this resolution making this audit mandatory.
The silver jubilee celebrations of the association held with year-long festivity during 2003. As part of this, first Veterinary Science Congress was organized on 26 & 27th December 2003 at CoVAS, Mannuthy. Since 2010, the event is being organised regularly during the second Saturday and Sunday of November every year and till date, 11 editions of this coveted event have been conducted successfully.
The Mannuthy and Pookode college units were given the status of district unit as per the decision of general body meeting during 2008, and at present the association has 16 district/college units and effective taluk units in all the districts.
For the past many years, awards have been given to state level best veterinarian and for farm journalism. During the year 2019, few novel categories of awards viz. life time achievement, best teacher, best emerging veterinarian and best theses (PG & PhD) were instituted. The fist lifetime achievement award was given to Dr. P. Balachandran.
IVA Kerala being an affiliated member of the national chapter actively associated with it and many of our leaders held the office of national IVA. Dr. Ahmed Kunju was elected as national vice president during 1992 and Dr. N. Mohanan during 1998.
