After all why should agriculture department face injustice…
For past several months many of my colleagues and friends in Agriculture Department had been pressing hard to articulate their genuine demand of promotions and pay anomaly. An issue held up since 1988 when new gazette service recruitment rules for Agriculture Department were framed. since 1988 the promotion scenario in Agriculture Department of the Jammu and Kashmir has got so unceasing, engulfing hundreds of desperate officers of Agriculture technocrat fraternity.
Desperation is too mild a word to describe the situation Agriculture technocrats are in for the last more than two decades. Harassed at the hands of several blue eyed nepots in alliance with political masters and bureaucratic fixers through skewed and exploitative provisions of line-seniority, deputation, OPG (own pay and grade) the fraternity of highly qualified and experienced scientists and technocrats have lost hope of any justified promotion avenues in near future. And this manipulative handling since mid seventies had pushed the whole lot of officers into a quandary of hopelessness and induced inefficiency.
Since long the image of human resource management and prospects of promotion and excellence are same (flawed and bleak) in almost all departments of the state but the situation in state Agriculture department is worst. Here officers who joined as subordinates, overnight became boss of their superiors and the more qualified became secondary to incapable. In last more than two decades only a few officers rose to the higher levels of the hierarchy irrespective of rules and regulations and are enjoying the polygamous status of several office-assignments and charges simultaneously, doing justice to none. The very last elevation of officers through prescribed recruitment rules was witnessed somewhere in mid-eighties and then onwards it is more gimmickry than promotion and more favoritism than justice. In a unique example of pay anomaly, here seniors (read senior officers) get less remuneration than their subordinates. Obviously it is because of administrative confusion and brazen violation of set service rules and norms.
In 1985 department of Agriculture experienced a sudden multidimensional expansion almost on all fronts of technology, infrastructure, Agriculture inputs, and especially human resource when World Bank aided National Agriculture Extension Programme (NAEP) was implemented. A pilot project of lab to the field known as T & V (training and visits) programme was launched that invited services of huge number of agriculture scientists, technocrats and extension workers. A holistic approach for all-round development and sustenance of agriculture sector for achieving self sufficiency was initiated and positive results achieved in a short span of time. But exploiters on prowl made a knock and here at this juncture the rot was pushed down into the system and many cronies of nepotistic order were placed and placed clandestinely, so as to push them up into the hierarchy giving a damn to rules and the fundamentals of justice. And now, the rot has crystallized to the size that no human resource expert will ever get involved, leave alone dare to transform and burn his fingers. Exploitation through adhocracy and favoritism has left Agriculture officers and other scientists disgruntled and redundant and thus their expertise is not utilized properly and prudently in the best interest of farming community and self-reliance of the state. On behalf of the demoralized Agriculture technocrats it is now humbly requested to make a bold initiative of restoring the dignity of the officers by giving them their due positions as envisaged in the rules and remove all sort of anomalies at an earliest so that a vibrant agriculture sector will have the best possible scientists at its call.
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