Shortage of agriculture officers along with scarcity of seeds, manures plus lack of awareness among the tillers ultimately pushed the farming community into heavy losses despite investments in lakhs and the government is safe without losing a pie. There seems to be none to take care of them technically. They are in a predicament. Sources said that dearth of officials in one respect drove the farmers into losses. Kharif season begins in two weeks but the skeleton staff working is at a loss to inform the farmers properly about the weather situation, crop pattern, investment, seeds, fertilisers to be used among others.
On the whole government’s indifference coupled with deficiency of officers led to lot of tension among the farmers in the State except in two or three district. In seven districts posts of joint directors fell vacant. Each district has two deputy directors, four assistant directors and four agriculture officers. Besides, posts of divisional officers, mandal level agriculture officers, village level officers and special officers and soil testing, safety officers are also vacant to a large extent.
