Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: The COVID-19 lockdown that began on March 24, 2020 has spelt disaster for the farmers of Assam who keep staring at their vegetables and crops being damaged in their fields. The State Agriculture department has literally rubbed salt into the farmers’ wound by not standing beside them with a helping hand at this hour of crisis. Many farmers rue the fact that not a single official from the department has met them with a helping hand.
What may lead the department to be so ‘insensitive’ to the farmers’ woes? A peep into the department and its manpower throw much light on the sluggishness of the department.
Employees of the department who have to interact directly with farmers at the grassroots level are the agricultural extension assistants. Believe it or not, the department has as many as 1,200 vacant posts of agricultural extension assistants. The total sanctioned post of agricultural extension assistants in the department is 2,829.
What’s even more shocking is that the department has as many as five sanctioned posts of Additional Director; but all the five posts have been lying vacant. The situation in other posts of the department is not better either. It has four of the 16 sanctioned posts of Joint Director vacant, nine of the 52 sanctioned posts of district agriculture officers vacant, 44 of the 103 posts of assistant directors vacant, 10 of the 165 posts of sub-divisional agriculture officers vacant and 224 of the 449 sanctioned posts of agriculture development officers vacant.
Assam is basically an agrarian State where agriculture is the basis of the State economy. Why is such an important department left in the lurch?
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