Jalandhar, March 8
Punjab is still languishing due the acute shortage of those experts who are supposed to inform farmers about recent technologies and advanced agricultural practices. An acute shortage of staff in the seven districts of Majha and Doaba region portrays this picture well.

As per data gathered by The Tribune from the Chief Agriculture Offices of all these districts, nearly 206, out of total 364 posts of the Agriculture Development Officer (ADO), have been lying vacant in these districts for the last 10 years.

Ironically, with 50 posts of ADO, out of total 72, lying vacant, Gurdaspur is one of the worst sufferer, in which constituency of the state Agriculture Minister falls. Hoshiarpur is facing 55 vacant posts against total of 77 posts across the district.

Jalandhar is languishing with severe shortage of ADOs with 33 posts lying vacant against total of 52. The picture in Kapurthala (12 vacant against 32), Tarn Taran (22 vacant against 50), Amritsar (15 vacant against 50) and Nawanshahr (19 vacant against 31) reflects the same callous approach of successive governments.

ADOs are of the opinion that the end sufferer of this acute shortage are none other than farmers of the state.

“Our duty is to introduce newly invented technologies to the farmers. Our job is to facilitate flow of conclusions of classical scientific researches to peasants in a very dilute form. With more than half of the posts lying vacant, some agricultural pockets are lying chronically untouched by the department,” said Dr Avtar Singh Hothi, president, Plant Doctors Services Association.

Not only hindrance in the flow of technology, worthlessness is another issue which is mocking at thousands of graduates, who have passed four-year B.Sc (agriculture) course in the last 10 years.

“Nearly 300 graduates clear B.Sc (agriculture) every year. With no job in their own state, nearly 25 per cent of such graduates go to agricultural universities of the US and European countries”, said Dr Gurprit Brar, ex-president of the Punjab Agriculture University Students Association.

“Only one per cent of such doctors return to the native country, not to serve as an Agriculture Development Officer but as a research scientist in universities. Therefore, lacunae remain unfilled,” he added.

“In spite of doing postgraduation in subjects like plant breeding, genetics, soil sciences and pathology, doctors are bound to do jobs as salesmen in companies producing agricultural products and some are opting for marketing jobs in banks,” added Dr. Brar.

Hoshiarpur, March 8
Congratulating women on the International Women’s Day, Minister for Medical Education and Research, Forest, Labour and Parliamentary Affairs, Punjab, Tikshan Sud exhorted women to come forward for the complete eradication of social evils like female foeticide, dowry and intoxication from the Indian society.

Addressing the gathering in a function organised in connection with the distribution of cheques to self-dependant organisations and welfare societies here today, Sud appealed the young girls to do technical courses like information and technology etc.

Women sarpanchs, panchs, municipal councillors, women self-dependant organisations should take part in the development works, said Tikshan Sud pleading reservation to women in every field.

He distributed cheques of Rs 40 lakh to 40 self-dependant and welfare societies for various development works and announced that cheques of Rs 15 lakh would also be given to the remaining organisations very shortly.

A district-level function in connection with the celebration of International Women’s Day was organised at Multi-purpose Health Workers (female) Training School under the Chairmanship of Civil Surgeon Dr S K Gupta.

All the speakers exhorted women organisations to unitedly raise their voice against the social evils like female foeticide and dowry etc. A function in the connection with the International Women’s Day was also organised at local Shiv temple at Sunder Nagar and by the District Mahila Congress Committee today.

Nawanshahr: The district Health Department, in collaboration with the Nari Shakti Jagriti Manch and Sankalp, organised a seminar to mark International Women’s Day here on Monday. Dr D.P.S. Sandhu, former Director, Health and Family Welfare, was the chief guest. Civil Surgeon Dr J.R. Chauhan, District Health Officer Dr. Ashok Guru, among others, delivered lecturers on the women rights and stressed the need to launch a drive to create awakening among the masses about the rights of the women and to launch a fight against female foeticide.

The district-level NGOs Coordination Society, UPKAR, organised a function at the ITI to mark International Women’s Day. Speakers stressed the need for concerted efforts for bringing in change in the mindset of society to curb the tendency of gender discrimination.

The KC College of Education organised a poster making and slogan writing competition to mark the day.

Jalandhar: An HIV/AIDS awareness lecture was organised at Hansraj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya on the occasion of International Women’s Day here on Monday. Dr Kulbir Sharma, in charge of ART Centre from the Civil Hospital, delivered a lecture highlighting the causes and protection from this disease. A quiz contest on AIDS was also held. The winners were awarded later on. Meanwhile. Kanya Maha Vidyalaya also celebrated International Women’s Day.

A special award ceremony was held in which the meritorious students from different fields were honoured. Apart from this, the college authorities honoured 48 rural girl students who were imparted free of cost training in cosmetology, computer science and fashion designing by the KMV’s Women Empowerment Cell. Chief guest Sushila Bhagat and guest of honour Raj Mohini Sondhi urged the students to adopt the path of meditation as an ultimate panacea for modern-day ills.

Pathankot: Women’s Day was celebrated at Mini Bright Future School here today. Kartik Wadhera, president of the District Youth Congress, was the chief guest, while Dhanwant Bajwa, municipal councillor, presided over the function. A blood donation camp was also organised by the Pragati Mahila Club in which 20 members of the club donated blood.

Hoshiarpur, March 8
The Union government has launched various schemes for the benefit of the general public and is providing requisite funds to the state governments for their implementation, but owing to the negative attitude of officials concerned of the state governments, many of the schemes either remained on paper or have not been effectively implemented due to which the amounts released by the government had either remained unspent or lapsed.

These facts came to light at a recent meeting of the District Monitoring Committee constituted by the Union government, under the chairmanship of the Member of Parliament of the area for reviewing the progress of its sponsored schemes.

It was revealed at the meeting that the Central government had granted a project of Rs 365.59 lakh under the total sanitation programme during 2004-05 for which the first instalment of Rs 61.99 lakh had been released at that time.

After a lapse of three years, the state government had released its share in the first instalment of Rs 29.39 lakh on August 28, 2008.

Hoshiarpur MP Santosh Chaudhary was astounded to know the fate of this scheme. While reviewing the progress of its implementation, she was told by the district administration that the baseline survey had yet to be done for providing toilet blocks in houses and schools for which Rs 15 lakh had been earmarked.

It was also revealed that a proposal of Rs 76.38 lakh had been formulated to provide toilet blocks in government schools. The estimated cost of each toilet block was Rs 40,000, of which 10 per cent share had to be deposited by the school.

Santosh Chaudhary said toilet blocks in 90 government schools had been constructed in the district even after the lapse of six years of the introduction of this scheme, for which Rs 36 lakh had been spent.

A susm of Rs 2.18 lakh was spent on baseline survey in rural areas during 2004 to 2007 and Rs 3.60 lakh on miscellaneous expenditure. A sum of Rs 49.60 lakh was lying unspent with the water supply and sanitation division-I, Hoshiarpur.

She said similar was the fate of other Central schemes. She had written to the ministry concerned in this connection.

Nawanshahr, March 8
Eminent educationists stressed on the need of doing away with orthodox methods of teaching and exhorted teachers to put their heart and soul to make classroom teaching effective and interesting, during lectures on a seminar organised at the Government Senior Secondary School, Rurki Khas (Hoshiarpur), on Saturday.

The first-of-its-kind seminar, on quality education in the Government Schools in the state, was organised as a part of innovative initiatives being taken by the DGSE, Krishan Kumar, to bring in qualitative improvement in the functioning of government schools.

Jaswinder Singh, a school lecturer, co-ordinated for the seminar. While Dr. Pritpal Singh Walia, District Education Officer, Hoshiarpur, presided over.

Eminent educationists like Dr. Atamjit Singh, Dr. DR Vij and Dr. Charanjit Singh, were the key speakers at the seminar, which was attended by as many as 60 school teachers belonging to different districts.

Members of the Parents Teachers Associations, School Management Committee, constituted under the Rashtriya Madhaymik Shikhiya Abhiyan (RMSA) and Pendu Shikhiya Vikas Committee (PASWAK) under the Sarv Sikhiya Abhiyan, were also present on the occasion.

Dr. Atamjit Singh, recipient of the Sahitya Academy Award, while sharing experiences of his four-decade-long pedagogic experience, said teachers should motivate students to develop creativity, providing them ample opportunities, rather than creating hindrances, by adopting orthodox teaching methods.

“Every child is gifted with some innate qualities and a suitable environment and due motivation is required for that talent to blossom,” said Dr. Atamjit.

Dr. DR Vij, in his lecture, while citing innumerable examples, said a teacher should not let boredom enter his classroom. He should create such a teaching-learning environment that learners have quest for more information and knowledge even after the teacher leaves the classroom.

Dr. Vij also gave tips for increasing admissions as well as improving classroom teaching in government schools, where most of the students come from different socio-economic backgrounds.

Dr. Vij exhorted teachers to come forward to initiate concerted efforts to re-establish their credibilty in public.

Dr. Charanjit Singh Saini shared his views on the necessity of English language and the methods of developing language skills in government schools.

Ashok Kumar, science teacher of the school, organised an exhibition of working models of science on the occasion.

Rajwant Kaur, Principal and Harbhajan Singh, a school teacher, among others, also spoke on the occasion.