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 1st 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 2nd 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,
Rajveer Choudhary
General Secretary,
AIASA
M: 09999641545
Email:
generalsecretary@aiasa.in
|
Sudhir Kumar
National President,
AIASA
Mob: 08505908080
Email: nationalpresident@aiasa.in
|