SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, June 15: The Birsa Agricultural University (BAU) on Wednesday organised a session for the students of College of Agricultural Engineering (CAE). Speaker on the occasion was Dr S N Jha, Deputy Director General (Agricultural Engineering) of Indian Council of Agricultural Research and President of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers.
Addressing the students, Dr SN Jha said, “In the face of dwindling land resources and increasing number of farmers for agriculture and food demand to feed the burgeoning population, expectations from agriculture engineers have increased considerably as they have the capability to increase production and productivity in lesser time and with greater perfection through farm mechanization.”
Dr Jha further urged the students to have short term, medium term and long term targets in life and to use every minute effectively whether they are studying, writing, walking or sleeping.
“Try to take up and complete the priority number one task just after getting up and if it fails for any reason, take up the second priority,” he said.
He further added, “One should always be confident in approach, never be afraid of background, identify his/her weaknesses on a regular basis and try to remove them with improvement exercises and regular practice.”
Dr Jha said he would impress upon the state government and JPSC from ICAR level for early recruitments against the vacant posts of College of Agricultural Engineering as acute shortage of teachers would affect accreditation and graduates will not be able to take admission in PG engineering courses of country’s leading institutes and agricultural universities.
He also stressed that UG students should be sent for country’s different universities for four-week Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana) Programme in order to have varied experience and exposure.
Replying to students’ queries about career prospects, Jha said agriculture engineering graduates can apply in agriculture service of different state governments, FCI and industry.
“Master degree holders have a lot of opportunities including those in universities and research and development institutions. The Government of India has written to state governments several times to sanction the position of agricultural engineer for every district,” he added.
Dr Jha further stated that many states including Jharkhand have already done it. “Watershed and mechanization programmes can not be sustainable without the active involvement of agriculture engineers. Honesty should start from ourselves and we should vow never to let down the profession,” he said.
