Pocharam pitches for more Agricultural Engineering grads

Sangareddy: Inaugurating the new campus for College of Agricultural Engineering, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University in 50 acres at Kandi mandal on Friday, Minister for Agriculture Pocharam Srinivas Reddy has said that just starting a college wasn’t enough and that facilities, infrastructure and quality of education were also necessary for a college to provide its students.

The new campus has state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure with soil and water conservation engineering, irrigation and drainage engineering, processing and food engineering and renewable energy engineering, farm machinery and power engineering laboratories apart from having a theatre-like seminar hall, library, examination hall, drawing hall, waiting halls, computer labs, examination halls and class rooms. There is also a poly house constructed within the campus. An agricultural research centre would also be setup in another 50 acres of land soon.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, he said that the State government has been setting up agricultural polytechnic colleges across Telangana and that ,1000 new Agriculture Extension Officers who were selected through TSPSC were resuming their work within a week. 100 AEOs out of these 1,000 AEOs have graduated from agriculture polytechnic colleges. Another 208 horticulture officer posts were also sanctioned by the government, according to him.

He said that there was a need for more agricultural engineering graduates in agriculture and horticulture departments at mandal-level. He felt that students and professors needed to focus on modern farming methods using machinery which can reduce farming costs while increasing the yield and profits for farmers. He said poly houses and drip irrigation were things students needed to show interest in.

Giving examples of young graduates who have been reaping great profits from poly houses, he said that Telangana was the only state where highest subsidy was being given for poly houses and drip irrigation. “The target for drip irrigation was 50,000 but we have received 1,50,000 applications. We have sought a loan from NABARD for meeting the demand and we will secure another Rs 1000 crore for this purpose,” he announced.

Taking a dig at the Opposition parties for criticising the State government and holding padayatras in villages, he said that if these very political parties had taken decisions about irrigation and power when they were in power, farmers wouldn’t have committed suicide.

He added that in areas where rainfed crops were being cultivated, farmers were committing suicide due to debt burden. “Projects have to be built, canals have to be dug, and ground water levels have to increase. Only then would farmers stop committing suicide,” he concluded.

The programme was attended by Swamy Goud, Chairperson, State Legislative Council, MLAs Chinta Prabhakar, M Bhupal Reddy, MLCs Sudhakar Reddy, V Bhoopal Reddy, Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao, ZP Chairperson Rajamani, Sangareddy Municipal Chairperson Vijaya Laxmi, Joint Collector V Venkateswarlu and others.