No recruitment in agri dept for years, BAU students worry for their future

Ranchi: Students of Jharkhand’s lone agriculture varsity — Birsa Agriculture University (BAU) — are apprehensive about their future as no new recruitment has been made in the state agriculture department for years. Not surprisingly, most students who graduated from the institute in recent years have either ventured out of the state or were forced to make a professional switch.
Notably, agriculture has been identified as one of the priority sectors by the state government in its bid to revive the economy, which has suffered major setbacks owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown. Experts, however, suggested that the farm sector could be strengthened only if skilled human resource is put to effective use.
Recruitment in the state agriculture department has not taken place since 1989, during the time of undivided Bihar. According to the agriculture department’s data, out of its 5,565 posts at the district and block levels, only 1,652 are currently filled.
Anup Kumar, a final-year student at BAU, said every year around 300 students graduate from BAU and its affiliate college. He added, “Since 1989, thousands of students have passed out from BAU, but none has got a job in the agriculture department as the state government never bothered to fill up the vacancies. On the contrary, the varsity has almost doubled its student intake capacity in the last four years.”
Sushil Mahto, a first-year BAU student, added, “We don’t get permanent jobs in the varsity here or in state agriculture department. So we are forced to migrate to other states.”
Menka Kumar, a final-year Msc student at BAU, said owing to the vacancies, the government often fails to provide timely support to the farmers.
The president of Jharkhand Pradesh Professional Congress Committee (JPPCC), Aditya Vikram Jaiswal, said, “Around four to five years ago, the state government had initiated a recruitment drive, but the process got halted for reasons best known to it.” Notably, JPPCC is a unit of the state Congress, which is an ally in the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand government. Jaiswal added that a week ago, they had met with state agriculture minister Badal Patralekh and requested him for a speedy resolution of the issue. “The minister had assured us that the problem would be sorted out at the earliest,” Jaiswal said.
The minister and the agriculture secretary Aboo Bakr Siddique were not available for comments.