Ludhiana: Protest on for 2 months, demands must be fulfilled: PAU protesters
The protest started on September 26. “We have met the governor, cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats. We want immediate recruitment in agriculture department, Mandi Board, horticulture department, Markfed, Punjab Seed Corporation and other related departments besides creation of agriculture teachers’ post,” said the students’ union.
Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) students, who have been staging a protest for the past 72 days demanding recruitment to vacant positions in the agriculture department, said the state government should accept their demands at the earliest.
The protest started on September 26. “We have met the governor, cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats. We want immediate recruitment in agriculture department, Mandi Board, horticulture department, Markfed, Punjab Seed Corporation and other related departments besides creation of agriculture teachers’ post,” said the students’ union.
On 5 December, the agitators met Narinder Singh Benipal, joint director of the agriculture department. Angrej Mann from the students’ union said that the students were told during the meeting that a proposal had been sent to agriculture secretary Arshdeep Singh Thind regarding the need for agricultural officers. “The protesters met Thind on November 10 who said the matter would be looked into,” Mann said.
Angrej Mann said, “380 out of 934 posts of agriculture development officer, 315 of 725 posts of agriculture sub-inspector, 105 of 115 posts of market secretary, 139 of 225 posts of horticulture development officer, 18 of 23 posts of district mandi officer, and 130 out of 226 posts of soil conservation officer are lying vacant in various departments.”
“The CM had promised that he would appoint agriculture students as teachers to guide farmers, but to no avail,” said Angrej Mann.
Last year, the union had staged a protest for 10 odd days before calling it off on the eve of the then Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s visit on November 12, 2024. “They were assured a meeting with the chief minister and the minister of agriculture, education and finance, but nothing came out of the meeting in which finance minister Harpal Cheema was present,” Mann said, adding that if there are no jobs for agriculture students in the government sector, what are these degrees for?
According to students’ union, after their protest began on September 26, a meeting was held with MP Malvinder Singh Kang next day who “assured them that their demands would be addressed”. The union further said that they met agriculture joint director Narinder Singh Benipal, Punjab governor, state chief secretary KAP Sinha, finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema, agriculture secretary Arshdeep Singh Thind and special secretary Baldeep Kaur but “nothing has been done”.
