**Abstract**

India is one of the top consumers of antibiotics in agriculture worldwide, which accounts for 3% of global consumption, which is estimated to double in 2030. The use of antibiotics, particularly in chickens, is expected to triple in India by 2030. The overuse, injudicious use, and misuse of these antimicrobial drugs have spawned the evolution of life-threatening bacteria that is making the current antimicrobials' reserve useless. Suitable extension outreach and continuing programmes should be devised to promote the judicious use of antimicrobials. Innovative approaches, such as One Health, Antimicrobial Stewardship, and antimicrobial conservation are the need of present alarming situation. There is need to reduce the antimicrobial use in animals, particularly domesticated animals; provision of infection surveillance in hospitals; improving hospital surveillance for monitoring antibiotic resistance; promoting rational and judicious use of drug through education, monitoring, and supervision; researching new drugs; and developing and implementing a more restrictive and participatory antibiotic policy by including various stakeholders. Thus, tracking the rate of veterinary antimicrobial use, resistance, and residues, through a nationwide surveillance and monitoring system, and educating farmers, veterinarians, and consumers could pave the way to fight against this catastrophic situation of antimicrobial resistance.

**Keywords:** antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial stewardship, One Health, stakeholders, surveillance

#### **1. Introduction**

Antimicrobial agents are widely used in food-animal production for disease prevention and treatment in animals, to control disease spread, to prevent contamination of the food chain via horizontal and vertical transfer of antimicrobial resistance, and to increase productivity [1]. However, their overuse in humans and animals leads to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, a general term that encompasses decreased and poor efficacy of antimicrobials to treat disease [2]. Recent projections revealed that by 2050 global livestock production would fall by 3–8% each year, as result of which annual global gross domestic product will decline by 1.1–3.8%. Due to rise in disease incidence, low income countries will be affected more severely, with

a predicted rise of extremely poor people from 6.2 to 18.7 million by 2030 [3]. Rise in frequency of treatment failures have been reported in treatments with infections caused by multi-, extensive-, and pan-drug resistant bacteria. Once antimicrobials (antibiotics) normally used against bacteria lose their efficacy to treat disease, it becomes necessary to use others, so-called "reserve" or "last resort" options that are often more expensive and/or toxic preparations [4]. In several developing countries, antimicrobial consumption is expected to rise considerably due to increase in meat consumption, from Indonesia (202%) and Nigeria (163%) to Vietnam (157%) and Peru (160%), by 2030 [5]. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that antimicrobials used in food-animal production will increase by 67% globally, i.e., from 63,000 in 2010 to 106,000 tonnes by 2030—an increase of 67% [6]. Thus, overuse of antimicrobials in the food-animal production sector gives rise to antimicrobial resistance in animal pathogens, leading to increase in therapy failure with a negative effect on animal health and welfare [7]. The immediate cost of withdrawal of non-therapeutic antimicrobials at animal level, without adjustments in production processes, may decrease the feed efficiency, growth, survival, and number of animals born [8].
