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Friday, April 17, 2015

Anti Farm Students Policies of the Government

All India Agricultural Students Association, an apex organization of Farm students during the Press conference on 16.4.2015 at New Delhi stated that government has completely neglected agricultural students in the country. All India Agricultural Students Association (AIASA), a professional organization has been established on 1^st December, 2011 under Society’s Registration Act XXI of 1860 with the consent/approval of Agriculture Ministry, ICAR, and Ministry of consumer Affairs. The Association looks after the welfare of one million present and former students in the field of agriculture, Horticulture, Agricultural Engineering, Fisheries, Forestry, Veterinary science etc. in close coordination and cooperation of University authorities, State Department of agriculture and other Central, State govt/private organizations.

National President of AIASA, Mr. Sudhir Kumar has stated that Agriculture sector is largely victim of negligence and triviality in approach concerned to the Human resource development and utilization as well. Referring it to a “State subject”, the Central Ministry never prioritise the primary sector and at maximum states, lack of funds drive the last nail to its coffin and therefore, it has become “no man land”. Agricultural policy making and execution has become largely synonymous to loan disbursements and subsidies only strikingly lacking any science.

The Association had earlier taken up the matter with Hon’ble Prime Minister of India vide Memorandum dated 20.08.2014 for improvement in agriculture sector particularly administrative reforms including creation of Indian Agriculture Service, filling up the vacant posts, parity in fellowships, infrastructure development, Granting of professional status to agriculture etc. Instead of taking positive actions on the issues raised by AIASA, the government has further discriminated agricultural students’ communities on various aspects:

Elimination of Agricultural Research Scholars from availing INSPIRE fellowship: The Department of Science and Technology completely wiped out agriculture research scholars from zone of consideration of INSPIRE fellowship provided to Ph.D. Degree research fellows by putting up the condition of minimum of a batch of 10 students in a M.Sc. discipline in particular year in the University by revising the Fellowship Policy during February, 2015. In almost all the Agricultural Universities numbering 72, no where the strength of a batch of students of 10 or more exist in a M.Sc. discipline as the agricultural education is integrated with research and only limited number of students are admitted in each discipline. This has been done to eliminate the agriculture research scholars belonging to farming family for availing the INSPIRE fellowship which are awarded annually to 1000 research scholars for advance/innovating research in all branches of science including agricultural science. AIASA submitted detailed memorandum to Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Minister of science and Technology on 4.3.2015 but the Ministry did not consider the issues raised by AIASA and issued notification dated 1.4.2015 on the basis of revised policy.

Disparity of Fellowship of Agricultural Students under ICAR with other funding agencies: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) is the nodal Department for formulation of policy for awarding scholarship to M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in all streams including agricultural stream. The DST has announced uniform rate of enhancement of fellowship for PhD research scholars throughout the Country vide Memorandum dated 21.10.2014 and in the Memorandum it has been written that enhancement will not be applicable to research scholars of agriculture pursuing MSc and PhD under ICAR. The research scholars of ICAR completely neglected by DST while fellowship has been enhanced about 80% (from Rs. 16000 to Rs 25000 for SRF and Rs. 24000 to Rs 36000-44000 for Research Associates) for other stream by all funding agencies based on the memorandum issued by DST. The research scholars of ICAR continue to get same rate of Rs 12000 and Rs 10500 under National Institutes for PhD students and Rs 8000 for MSc students qualified through all India competitive exams. The comparative rate of fellowship of agriculture students and students of other stream are given as under:

The comparative rate of fellowship of ICAR and other funding agencies are given as in Annexure 1.

B.Sc. (forestry) students under ICAR system eliminated from Banks jobs (Agriculture field Officers) by putting up condition of B.Sc. (Agroforestry) as essential qualification: Policy division of Ministry of Agriculture has recently recommended to all nationalized banks for making eligibility as B.Sc. (Agroforestry) instead of B.Sc. (forestry) for the posts of Agriculture field Officers. All the national banks made this policy and given instruction to recruitment agency i.e. IBPS for modification of essential qualification. The recruitment agency eliminated all B.Sc. (forestry) students and did not allow them for interview. But as per communication issued by ICAR, there is no such degree B.Sc. (Agroforestry) exist in Indian Education system. This elimination has been done by formulation of wrong policy by Agriculture Policy division of Ministry of Agriculture as there is not a single person in Agriculture Policy division of Ministry of Agriculture having background in agriculture.

4. Denial of professional status to agriculture: AIASA has taken up the matter with Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi vide their memorandum dated 20.8.2014 for granting professional status to agriculture at par with medical, engineering, legal etc. but inspite of taking any action on granting professional status to agriculture by establishing Agriculture Council of India (ACI) and granting license to agriculture students for entrepreneurship development, the government completely neglected agriculture by elimination of agriculture students from main stream of research and development and they are forced to work somewhere else and which is causing brain drain.

5. Neglecting Agriculture by not creating Indian Agriculture Service: An organized independent cadre system in agriculture in the form of Indian Agricultural Service comprising all the component services is the need of the hour. The huge mass of human resource churned out of the NARS (National agricultural research system) should be deputed to serve the cadres. The agriculture sector is facing huge brain and talent drain to the other service sectors and we should restore our valuable human resources to serve the stream ensuring "right person at the right place". So along with the existing ARS (Agricultural Research Service), which is a society service (under ICAR; a registered society under Societies Registration Act, 1860) there is a fervent need for creation of other services like Agricultural Developmental Services (ADS), Agricultural Inspection Services (AIS), Agricultural Education Services (AES), Agricultural Marketing Services (AMS), Agricultural Foreign Services (AFS) and Services related to Veterinary and Fisheries Sciences in pattern of USDA, DAFF (Australia), European Union, Embrapa (Brazil), China etc. All the above cadres must be central cadres under the banner of Indian Agricultural Service to bridge the gap between the ministry and the ICAR. ADS will ensure implementation of the centrally formulated policies at the state level. AIS will secure the food safety, quarantine system and plant and animal health. AES will bring all the State Agricultural Universities (SAU) under a common roof and regularly recruit the best talents as teaching personnel maintaining the total transparency. At present majority of the SAUs are facing dearth of funds and running with a weak infrastructure. Major concern is there is severe lack of teaching personnel in all SAUs and whose recruitment is in deep waters. Inspite of recommendations given by various government appointed Committees and Commissions such as Nalagarh Committee (1958), National Commissions on Agriculture (1976), Sarkaria commission on Centre-State Relations (1988), Central fifth and sixth pay Commission and Rajya Sabha passed resolutions twice by two third majority, government has not taken any action for creation of Indian Agriculture Service.

The Association has decided to take direct action by mobilizing one million present and former agricultural students throughout India. The present and former agriculture students will observe “Black day” on 21.04.2015 throughout India and will submit memoranda to President of India through District Magistrates at 500 locations in the country. Again one million Agricos will participate in “Agricos Million March” on 2^nd September, 2015 at 500 locations to be organized by AIASA across the country through our 750 cabinet members to sensitize the government towards agriculture and agriculturists.

Yours faithfully,