BISWANATH CHARIALI: The first ever public sector agricultural drone pilot training centre in the country will be set up at the North Eastern Region Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute located at Biswanath Chariali. Suitable classrooms, laboratories and other necessary equipment have been provided for this and about 95 percent of the necessary work has been completed and arrangements for providing training will be made very soon.
This was announced by the Director of North Eastern Region Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute, P Kamalabai, at a press conference. Apart from this, information was given upon details of the training and testing work conducted at the Institute, established in 1990, and various schemes implemented for farmers from its inception till date. The Director also informed that there are free hostels for male and female trainees, and the farmer trainees are given stipends per day and farmers coming from far away are provided travel allowance in ordinary class trains or buses. Trainees wishing to take training in other courses at a nominal cost per week while management level trainees have to pay a fee of Rs 2500.
She further said that mechanization in the agriculture sector will play an important role in producing more crops as the production of crops has been decreasing due to various reasons like decline in agricultural yield, climate change etc. Various types of agricultural machinery are also available for training in the institute and testing is done as per the specified guidelines of Bureau of Indian Standards, she added.
The Director said that field trials and laboratory trials are conducted as per the application of the equipment for which the required infrastructure has already been established and the infrastructure will be expanded in the near future.
A team of media persons of Biswanath Chariali also visited the Institute. During the visit, hundreds of women farmer trainees from Assam and Sikkim were interacted with. The women trainees expressed their goodwill to become self-reliant by producing agricultural crops. The Institute is ready to make every possible effort within the rules to provide training in use and repair of machinery in agriculture field to engineering students, departmental employees of Government Departments, employees of agricultural machinery manufacturing companies, NGOs, officials or nominated members of Farm Producer Companies (FPCs) besides farmers from different parts of India.
During the visit, it was learnt that the first Agricultural Machinery Training and Testing Institute was established in Budni, Madhya Pradesh in 1055 and successively it was established in Hisar, Haryana, Garladinne, Andhra Pradesh and Biswanath Chariali, Assam.
During the visit and interaction, Director P Kamalabai, Senior Agricultural Engineer PC Meshram, Farm Superintendent Tejbir Singh, Agricultural Engineer MR Patil, Rajneesh Patel, Administrative Officer Bitul Payeng etc were present.
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