Agriculture engg graduates left high and dry

Hyderabad: A number of Agriculture BTech pass outs, who nursed high hopes of serving in the public sector, are left in the lurch. Reason? No fresh notification was issued for the last 25 years for recruitment of BTech Agriculture graduate.

Students in the College of Agriculture Engineering in Sangareddy, most of them children of farmers, have been meeting the officials in the Agriculture Commissionerate to know their fate.

Most of the graduates have given up their hopes of securing a government job. They are now making a beeline to join private companies in remote locations and other States.

“After exhausting all avenues, now we are working for private firms, some of them are working in Mysore,” said V Prashant, president of Telangana Agricultural Engineering Graduates Association, who is now working for a private firm in Bhadracham.

According to Prashant, the future of 1,000 BTech Agriculture Engineering is hanging in balance, as the State government has failed to issue notification despite the order to fill the vacancies. While the Diploma holders and BSc (Ag) are considered for some posts after formation of Telangana State, none of the Engineering graduates have inducted into government posts for the last two-and-half decade.

The last time a notification for posts of 40 Agriculture Officers (AO) was issued was in 1991 for ‘Soil and Water Conservation’ scheme.

As many as 102 posts were earmarked by a GO during 2014 for Assistant Director of Agriculture (AD) for farm mechanisation, but it remained a stillborn baby.

The Association knocked on the doors of High Court and the court issued a directive to the State government on September 17 last year to reconsider the G O of 2014. In its response, the government promised that the BTech graduates would be appointed as Agriculture Extension Officers (AEO), which is generally provided to Diploma level cadre.

“What the BTech graduates should get is Agriculture Officer Posts, however what we are offered is the post meant for Diploma holders,” said another student, on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, the creation of new districts has created confusion over the jurisdiction for Agriculture Extension Officers (AEO), some of whom are now monitoring the agriculture operations in 60,000 acres, though the actual criteria is 5,000 acres only. After reconsidering various factors and rationalising, the government has decided to come up with additional posts through fresh notification by the TSPSC, where even the BTech (Ag) candidates too would be considered eligible.

According to officials of Agriculture Department, as many as 300 additional personnel are required following the creation of new districts, even after a total of 1258 AEO posts have been filled during the month of January, based on the notification issued earlier by Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC). Since the earlier posts were filled taking into consideration the requirements before creating new districts, mandals.

“After formation of new districts, Revenue divisions and mandals, the requirement has gone up. Hence these posts will be filled in by giving priority to top qualifiers,” said a higher official.

Md Nizamuddin