Chandigarh/Ludhiana, July 22
The Punjab Government has initiated a 12-days induction program for the newly recruited 108Agriculture Development Officers (ADOs) in the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Punjab.
According to the ACS (Development) Anirudh Tewari, the induction module has been developed by the Punjab Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (PAMETI) to impart training in offline mode to 55 ADOs in first batch which is already in on since July 20 till July 25, 2021. Likewise, the second batch comprising 53 ADOs would be imparted training from 26-31 July, 2021.
Addressing the recently appointed ADOs at PAU Ludhiana, Tewari who is also holding the charge of the Vice-Chancellor, PAU, briefly apprised them about the functioning and significance of the Agriculture Department. He also outlined the basic factors which led to the Green Revolution in Punjab besides the current challenges before state agriculture and role of extension officers in overcoming those especially switching over to crop diversification from conventional farming. Sharing his views on “Sustainable Agriculture and Farmers’ Prosperity”, Tewari also exhorted the trainee officers to play a pro-active role to discharge their duties with utmost dedication, sincerity and commitment with a missionary zeal to serve the farming community.
Congratulating these officers, Director Agriculture Dr. Sukhdev Singh Sidhu hoped that they would act as harbinger of change by remaining in constant touch with the farmers at the field level. He explained about pesticide usage in the state, Insecticide Act and its quality control.
Earlier during his welcome address, Director PAMETI Dr. HS Dhaliwal highlighted the objective of the induction training program, which would acquaint them with their roles & responsibilities in the department.
The training included sessions on organizational structure and functioning of the department and the expected roles of ADOs in their department. Heads (Joint Directors) of various sections/wings of the agriculture department would interact with the trainees and impart knowledge about the operations of their respective sections. Different acts, rules & policies being enforced by the department in the State regarding agricultural inputs would also be discussed in detail.
Exposure visits to agriculture departmental labs and crop residue management machinery and sites at PAU would be conducted where the trainees would interact with the experts and learn about the seed, fertilizer and insecticide testing procedures and various methods of crop residue management developed by PAU.
