UP Council of agriculture research (UPCAR) has slammed the IAS led bureaucracy and the state government for its continued indifference and inordinate delay in approving the “UP state agriculture universities bill 2014” which aims to promote training extension programme and research in agriculture sector. UPCAR, the apex body for coordinating the research and development among various state agriculture universities and also funding the development activities organized a day long brainstorming session on the new draft of the “State agriculture universities bill 2014’’ here on Thursday.
Addressing the media after the session director general of UPCAR Dr Rajendra Kumar said: “We are a toothless organization with huge responsibilities but no authority to execute the work. If some university or the agriculture college funded by us we can only refer the matter to the state government which in turn never takes any action’’.
“A cursory analysis of the work done by the vice chancellors reveals that the career of the agriculture scientists is ruined even for small lapses while the bureaucrats goes scot free even after committing lapses of monumental scale. A bureaucrats takes important decisions in a closed room and they are endorsed at every level of the government even if they are not in the interest of the people and actually end up in harming the interest of the state’’, said Dr Rajendra Kumar.
lamenting the indifference of the bureaucracy towards the draft bill, the DG said: “The first draft of the bill was drafted as per the recommendation of Dr Saroja Raman committee report and sent to the state government in 19956, the government decided to review the bill and set up one more committee. Another committee was set up by the government in 2010 and a revised Rsdraft bill’ was sent to the government which returned the draft bill’’.
“In 2013 the Agriculture production commissioner set up high level task force to draft fresh bill. Fresh bill was vetted by the Indian council of agriculture research, Agriculture Science congress and all the vice chancellors of state agriculture universities and sent to the state government in October 2014. The principal secretary of the agriculture department is not willing to cede its powers to the agriculture scientists and adamant on maintaining the dominance of the bureaucracy on agriculture education and research. The fate of the bill is still hanging in balance’’, said the DG UPCAR.
He said the present law “UP state agriculture and technology university act 1958 is 58 years old and most of its provision have turned archaic and needs immediate revision to make it relevant as the technology at all level of agriculture and farming has undergone a sea change. He said the Rsdraft bill’ pending with the state government, if legislated will go a long way in improving the education standards in state agriculture universities and colleges and also give a boost to the agriculture research. Presently there are 4 agriculture universities in the state—Kanpur, Meerut, Faizadab and banda and one deemed university at Allahabad, one veterinary collage at Mathura, 37 agriculture colleges affiliated with non agriculture state universities and 14 institutions run by the Indian council of agriculture research.
