It is heartening that our honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has launched an ambitious scheme "Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojna" where he has asked every Member of Parliament to adopt a village (not belonging to him or his relatives) and turn it into a Adarsh village ; here they are supposed to start schools, hospitals,banks, roads etc so that the villagers should not be deprived of basic social needs.
It will be better if on the same line our Agriculture universities/Veterinary universities also start adopting villages for implementing the new technologies in the villages. We must not forget that the present Indian Agriculture Universities have started in the year 1960 on American Land Grand Pattern where the students will earn while learn system . Additionally, students and faculty were supposed to develop new technologies and try their practicality under field conditions or at village level ; for implementation of the new system , a strong department of extension was established in each university . Slowly, the system forgot its primary objectives and became like a traditional university ; thankfully, we do not have any system of evaluating and finding faults in our system hence the system continues with out any questions . Even in present days, a routine practice of extension is followed by every Agri/Vety univ where a vehicle, with students , visit to a village and come back without much benefit to the students and villages.
But this may be changed slowly, if our Agri/Vety univ take a lesson from our prime minister's thinking .
I am suggesting some steps to start the program :
The Agriculture Universities have their constituent Agriculture colleges, Agriculture Engineering colleges, Home science colleges while Veterinary Universities are made of Veterinary colleges, fishery college, Dairy science college etc
- At university level, the program will be monitored by the Director of Extension and Director of Research.
- Each college should adopt at least 5 villages to start the work.
- At college level, Dean will be in charge of the program. He will form a team including faculty members and students for each village.
- Each college will identify its own field of work which will be related to its subject . Thus agriculture engineering college will look after agriculture appliances, fishery college will be responsible for aqua culture (using not only fishes but other creatures as well).
- Scope for Agriculture and Veterinary colleges are much larger and it will include a spectrum of subjects. For instance, veterinary colleges will look after, breeding , Artificial insemination,, vaccination, disease diagnosis, feed and fodder supply etc Agriculture college may look after health of the soil, crop patterns, marketing etc
- There are some fields where a joint effort is needed.
- In every village , worm compost and gobar gas plants should be made essential and operational . A "Gobar Bank " may be started in the villages where gobar may be collected from each house and profit should be distributed proportionately .
- The initial work should include the old techniques being followed in the village, the production data generated by these old techniques as well as earnings each scheme is responsible.
- Then the college team will demonstrate its new technique , implement the same and will generate production data and economic benefits caused by following these schemes.
- Help should be taken of TV, Videos, internet, You-tube to spread the new techniques. They will have the advantage of saving money on printing and will be repeated any time. However, the technique should depict all the details. For example in worm compost its not only the technique but places for purchase of earth-worms, their variety , cost , places where worm compost may be sold etc should be clearly shown .
- Youths of the village should be selected who will learn the new techniques and will follow them.
- The program will be assessed half yearly at college level and annually at university level.
- It is always advantageous to have " Cash prizes" , letter of appreciations etc for the participants - both village and college level.
- When new techniques have been followed quite well in the village with appreciation of increase in production data because of them, the college may shift to select new villages .
- I am well aware that above is only a very rough outline but initiation of the scheme is important. Naturally, once it takes off there are many experiences which will come in our way and we will be able to implement the program in a better way.
- BUT WHAT I AM SUGGESTING IS THE INTEND OF THESE COLLEGES TO TRANSFORM ECONOMY OF OUR VILLAGES BY IMPLEMENTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES
- It will be my pleasure to be a participant in any of these programs ..
