Agri students protest delay in entrance test

Vadodara/Anand: Students of four state agriculture universities of Gujarat have started protesting against the delay in organising the MSc entrance test which was earlier scheduled on Sunday.
Student groups from Junagadh Agricultural University, Navsari Agricultural University, Sardar Krushinagar-Dantiwada Agricultural University and Anand Agricultural University (AAU) have started registering their protest since Saturday over alleged inaction of the state government against privately run Rai University.

Students of the four agriculture university are perturbed after the MSc entrance test got postponed as five students of Rai University filed a petition in Gujarat high court demanding that they should be allowed to appear in the entrance test.

Put together, the four state agriculture universities have 378 seats in MSc against which they have received nearly 650 applications. This apart, 30 students from Rai University have also submitted forms to appear in the entrance test.

“We have nothing against the students of this private university. But the agriculture sciences degree offered by Rai University is not recognized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and yet they are being considered for MSc entrance test,” said Hardik Gajera, former general secretary of AAU and college president of the All India Agriculture Students Association (AIASA).

“If students of this unrecognised university are allowed to complete their MSc from the government-aided universities, they will be considered for government jobs even as their own university is not adhering to the quality standards in education, research and extension programmes as stipulated,” he said.

At AAU itself, there are 67 postgraduate seats for which nearly 150 students have applied. “If students of such private university are allowed this year, it will open floodgates and hamper the very basis of agriculture education in the state,” he said.

AIASA has alleged that as per guidelines to run agriculture courses, a university should have at least 30 hectares of land of which 20 hectares have to be used to carry out research and field studies apart from basic necessities like laboratories and research centres.

“All this facilities especially that required for getting field exposure are not available with this private university,” the members said.

Students of AAU have decided to take out a protest rally from AAU campus to Anand district collectorate where they will submit a memorandum to the authorities.