J&K Unemployed Horticulture Graduates write open letter to LG Sinha

12 July 2021

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Srinagar, July 12: J&K Unemployed Horticulture Graduates Union have written an open letter to J&K’s Lieutenant General Manoj Sinha and have sought governmental interventions to address their their joblessness and make use of their academic qualifications for the growth of the horticulture sector in J&K.

Ziraat Times here shares the full text of the open letter sans any modifications or editing:

Manoj Sinha

Honorable Lieutenant Governor

Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir

Respected sir

The erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is now a union territory, is known the world over as a picturesque, beautiful and scenic piece of heaven on the earth. It has been bestowed with a lot of treasures like flowing rivers, sky-piercing mountains, lush green meadows and people with a sense of the most humane hospitality.

One more thing that this pious land possesses is the environmental and climatic conditions perfect for horticulture, the most important contributor to the state’s economy.

Horticulture is the main driving force of the economy of Jammu and Kashmir with its 17 districts out of 20 directly dependent on it. Almost 35 lakh souls are involved in this field for their livelihood and an annual turnover of Rs 8000 crore is generated by it.

Whenever the word horticulture popps up anywhere, most of the people of the state restrict this amazing and vast science to apple only which is far from being true.

Just for basic knowledge of the common masses, Horticulture comprises of four main branches…

1 Fruit science and cultivation

2 Vegetable science and cultivation

3 Flower science and cultivation

4 The post harvest management of all these crops combined…

The sole purpose of mentioning the branches of horticulture is to make the people think about and imagine the huge number of people directly and indirectly linked to and depending on the field of horticulture…

In a region where setting up of a huge firm or a company is not an easy job given the factors like temperature, terrain and availability of raw material, the two main viable options for the people are to get into government offices or bank upon horticulture.

Horticulture as a science thus is very important for a region like Jammu and Kashmir…But to the surprise of many, horticulture was not taught in Jammu and Kashmir as a separate science upto as recently as 2007 for reasons still not clear. However horticulture graduation takes 4 important years of a person, 3 years of academics followed by one year of internship.

The basic aim of teaching horticulture science was supposed to train and educate students so as they graduate and join the department of horticulture to professionally utilise their education in the relevant field to contribute to the overall economy of the state that breathes on horticulture…But to the disappointment of the people in general and the horticulture graduates in particular, that has never happened… The pathetic state of the horticulture sector can be gauged from the fact that since its inception, not a single recruitment has taken place since 2007… The number of horticulture graduates has been piling up since then but they have been left dismayed and disappointed as even in the fields that require their education and services, their degrees hold no value…

This is no exaggeration but most people including government officials and leaders don’t even know that Horticulture is taught as a separate science and a degree in horticulture named as BSc (Hons) Horticulture , as specific as that, exists.

Imagine the trauma that one is in when he/she is told that his/her degree holds no value and that he/ she should go on to do business after spending 4, 6 or even 10 years securing a particular degree.

Sir, if a person who studies the science of what is termed as the backbone of the economy of our state is not even acknowledged as a horticulture graduate, what options does he/she have?

Astonishingly, B.Sc. Horticulture is a degree which is not exclusively an eligibility for any post… However, Our immediate demands include:

*Keeping B.Sc. Horticulture the sole eligibility for gazetted-posts like HDO, AFO and non- gazetted posts like SHT, Horticulture grading/ marketing inspector

*Like for the post of canning instructor in the department of food supplies, both degree holders and diploma holders are kept eligible, same should be done for the post of horticulture technician IV

* Reorganization of department of horticulture

* Holding DPCs in the department of horticulture so that posts of different tiers get filled and subsequently freed paving way for fresh promotions and recruitments…

*Reviewing the status of Rehbar-e-Baghbani scheme announced in 2018 by the department of horticulture…

The accelerated recruitment process that your administration has initiated shows us a light across a long and very dark tunnel, only if we could at least be assured that we exist as students before being seen as employed or unemployed.

The PhD scholars, MSc scholars and the undergraduates of horticulture are beginning to develop suicidal tendencies as a sign of exhaustion and emptiness after seeing what their seniors in the same field have gone through as they are seemingly without any chance of utilising all the time they’ve spent and all that professional skills they’ve acquired throughout these degrees and are nearly overaging, which makes it absolutely imperative that these posts are advertised as soon as possible.

I hope that your able administration would put an end to our fading hope seeing all our colleagues giving a shot at recruitment in their relevant fields … Because there’s a saying “tables turn, bridges burn and we live and learn”.

Yours faithfully

Ajaz Bashir

Member – All Jammu and Kashmir Unemployed Horticulture Graduates Union