Assam: New role of agricultural engineering highlighted

TEZPUR: The annual general body meeting of the Assam-NE Chapter of the Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) was held in the Assam Agricultural University (AAU) campus. The meeting was attended by Agricultural Engineers working in different organizations in the NE Region of India.

Dr. Pankaj Barua, Head, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Assam Agricultural University, while welcoming the members emphasized the pro-active actions of the professional body required for bringing it to the centre stage in the development of agriculture in NE Region. This was followed by in-depth deliberations on the contemporary issues, prospects, and challenges concerning the role of agriculture engineers working in the region including the prevailing regional status of the academic programmes in the discipline of agricultural engineering.

While deliberating the agenda of the meeting, Dr. Pradip Kumar Bora, chairman of the ISAE NE Chapter and Director of NERIWALM appreciated the decision of the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare to create separate directorate of Agricultural Engineering in all the states of the country. The agricultural engineers assembled at the meet, expressed their happiness that a long-standing aspiration of an independent directorate to deal with the technological challenges in agriculture of the region would be fulfilled. The meeting urged upon the State governments of the region, including the Government of Assam to initiate necessary action for an early implementation of the creation of a directorate of Agricultural Engineering.

Agricultural Engineering, being a multi-disciplinary academic programme could take advantage of appropriate adaptation and application of emerging tools technologies (sensor-based technologies, drone, automated machine, big data, renewable energy technologies, technologies for value addition of farm produces, etc.,) to solve burning issues concerning conservation and management of natural resource for the promotion of profitable, sustainable and climate-smart agriculture for the benefits of all classes of farmers and farm-based entrepreneurs including potential agro-processing industries of the region. While justifying such an ambitious plan, Prof. D. C. Baruah, Director of the Centre for Multi-disciplinary Research, at Tezpur University, also a participant in the ISAE-NE meet, stated that reorientation of the curriculum in the UG and PG programs of agricultural engineering and extending such programs to higher education institutes could appropriately complement to several mandates of the Government related to the sustainable development of region like NE India. While referring to the contemporary requirement of competencies for promoting business around region-specific crops like tea, spices, plantation crops, etc., Prof. Manuj Hazarika, Head, Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship, Tezpur University, another participant of the meet, stated that the requirements of flexibility NEP2020 compatible curricular structure are an advantage for re-orienting Agricultural Engineering Academic Curriculum.

In the above context, Agricultural Engineers also reiterated the need for an Agricultural Engineering College under Assam Agricultural University to meet the regional aspirations concerning agricultural development in Assam. It is worth mentioning that the four decades old decision of opening an Agricultural Engineering college, remains pending and the ISAE-NE body decided to apprise the Government of Assam to implement such a highly relevant decision at the earliest.

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