The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Agricultural officer posts to be filled by January 15

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 01, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Agricultural officer posts to be filled by January 15

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, DEC. 31. The State Government has decided to fill 275 posts of Agricultural Officer (AO) and 491 posts of Agricultural Extension Officer (AEO) by January 15. It was also decided to discontinue direct recruitment of Assistant Directors of Agriculture and instead fill them through promotion of AOs, the Agricultural Minister, N. Raghuveera Reddy, said here on Friday after releasing the diary for 2005 brought out by the Telangana Agricultural Officers' Association.

Complimenting the agricultural staff for their effort to enhance bank linkage to farmers in the State by Rs. 2,000 crores this year, Mr. Reddy appealed to them to play a similar role in educating farmers about the World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms which would apply in the coming fiscal.

The position of farmers would become more precarious once the foreign agricultural produce was dumped in the State, he said.

The Minister also praised the agricultural staff for making the Government policy on crop diversification almost a reality.

Alternative crops

The Government had insisted that there be no paddy cultivation in the two lakh hectares of upland areas served by wells during the current paddy.

As of now, alternative cropping was taken up in 1.67 lakh hectares, thanks mainly to the staff contacting every individual farmer and giving the advice.

He reminded them of their responsibility to raise farm ponds of three to five acres wherever wells existed to improve the groundwater table.

The Government would formulate a policy in this regard with NABARD assistance after he studied the programme in Madhya Pradesh where it was successfully implemented.

He said that foodgrain production in the State went up by 27 lakh tonnes this year. The Principal Secretary, Agriculture, A.K. Goel, the Agriculture Commissioner, Poonam Malakondaiah, and the MLAs -- Anam Ramnarayan Reddy and C. Laxma Reddy -- also spoke.

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