Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, MARCH 6
GOVERNMENT-funded farmer-friendly schemes and programmes in the North East region have failed to achieve their goals, despite the best of intentions behind such funding.
This “honest” observation was delivered by the Director of Research at Assam Agricultural University, Dr GN Hazarika during his brief speech at the opening session of “Regional Workshop on Review of Central Sector Schemes and Training Planning for EEI and SAMETIs of NE states” here today. The two-day workshop has been organized by Extension Education Institute (EEI), Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, Assam Agricultural University in collaboration with the department of Agriculture, government of Nagaland.
Dr Hazarika cited ATMA and SAMETI schemes/programes, among others, as examples of those projects whose implementation process has somehow failed to benefit the intended targets – farmers.
”My request to you is, please implement it (the schemes) in the right spirit so that the farmers are benefited,” he told the participants of the workshop, which included delegates from all the NE states, including Sikkim, and West Bengal.
He reminded them that the sole target of all such schemes and programmes is the farmers. “You are in service and your service is to help the farmers,” Dr Hazarika told the department officials attending the workshop.
He suggested that the experts and the department officials should give more effort and focus “on extension of machineries.” Because, he reasoned, extension means participation of farmers.
“And by extension, I mean to say that you should not help only in distribution (of machineries) but also be there in the field with the farmers,” Hazarika said.
Even education on agri technology should be more school-oriented, he felt. “Most of the B.Sc students opt for MBA after graduation and leave for city jobs. But if we take the higher secondary students from villages and educate them, then they return to their villages and it helps,” Hazarika pointed argued.
The question, he said, was “who will tell/teach the farmers.” By shifting the focus from college to higher secondary level, in connection with education on agri technology, he felt that the farming community stands to gain much more.
Giving an insight to the reason(s) behind the workshop, Dr Pradip K Neog, Director of EEI (NE Region), said the objective was to review implantation of Support to State Extension Programme for Extension Reforms (SSEPER) scheme and other central sector schemes of Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India in the NE region.
The first day of the workshop saw representatives of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh present their reviews on implementation of SSEPER schemes in their respective states.
