January 28, 2002

    The Union Agriculture Minister, Shri Ajit Singh today called upon the agricultural scientists to work cohesively to double the food production by 2007. While addressing the Vice Chancellors of agricultural universities in the country here, Shri Ajit Singh said the Vision Statement released by the Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the 88^th Indian Science Congress envisages India to be free of poverty, hunger and malnutrition besides becoming a environmentally safe country. Stating that the task set forth in this vision statement is challenging, the Minister said that through strategic planning and targeted action plans this vision could be translated into reality. The strategy should focus on inter-sectoral, inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional format and farmers will have to be the centre of all these actions and activities, Shri Singh said.

    Shri Ajit Singh said that in order to make agricultural research and education system globally competitive task forces should be formed to look into the issues like crop diversification, post harvest management and marketting. He further suggested that there should be a forward-looking monitoring and evaluation mechanism for investment made in agricultural research and education. The Minister emphasized on enhanced investment in agricultural research and education. On educational curriculum, Shri Ajit Singh said the real test of educational reform would be on farmers’ fields. He called for the use of advances in science and technology in improving productivity and ensuring higher economic returns to the farmers making them globally competitive.

    Shri Ajit Singh said that women’s technological empowerment holds the key to rural prosperity and house hold nutritional security. Stating that women traditionally have been opting for the Home Science programmes, Shri Ajit Singh said that recent years have seen a decline in the number of women opting for this programme. He hoped that the revised Home Science course curricula would help in reducing drudgery in professional life of working women.

    The Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Dr. Panjab Singh said that ICAR has taken a number of initiatives in ensuring quality agricultural education including establishment of Accreditation Board and new accreditation procedure for quality assurance and developing instructional material. These initiatives have started showing results in agricultural universities and ICAR institutes of the country. He said that reforms in agricultural education must include de-centralisation and de-bureaucratisation of managerial, administrative and financial powers. He said that the universities need to generate their own resources and suggested a 10% resource generation at the beginning and finally targeting at 25% by the end of Tenth Plan.

    The two-day conference of the Vice chancellors of State and Central agricultural universities is discussing to formulate an integrated approach towards Tenth Plan and financial health of state agricultural universities besides organisational and management reforms of these universities. The conference would also deliberate on issues like performance-linked support and developing mechanism to regulate quality education and research in the country. It will also discuss participation of NGOs in technology transfer programmes.