Dear Editor,
Through your esteemed daily, we would like to bring to the kind notice of the Department of Horticulture as well as Govt of Arunachal Pradesh that not a single new post of Horticulture Development Officer (HDO) has been created since the inception of Arunachal Pradesh as a fully fledged state despite the fact that our state has a huge potential in the Horticulture sector, evident from the many successful stories of farmers earning satisfying incomes from Rubber & Tea cultivation; manufacturing of Kiwi wine for the first time in our state; entry of Mandarin orange locally grown into the international market to name a few.
It may be noted that a huge number of students had opted for Horticulture as their subject of graduation with an aim to gain expertise in the subject professionally and hoped for serving the State Govt to bring positive changes but the sad truth is that recruitment of HDOs is dictated by promotions; retirements and vacancy caused due to death.
Adding to the plight of unemployed Horticulture graduates, recruitment of Horticulture Field Assistants (HFA) seems unfair since the eligibility requirement for the post has still not been changed to BSc Horticulture from the old existing XII Arts/Science because of which huge amounts are yearly incurred by the Dept for the training purpose of the unskilled HFAs.
Also, many of the graduates will soon be crossing the upper age limit for recruitment of HDO which would be injustice for the aspiring candidates.
The dream of our State Govt to make Arunachal Pradesh as a “Horticulture Hub” will remain only as a dream if the above mentioned are not taken seriously.
Therefore, the unemployed Horticulture graduates request the State Govt to kindly consider the points stated above and create additional posts of HDO as soon as possible.
Lastly, we request the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission to kindly defer the due date of upcoming examination for the post of HDO which is going to be conducted on 19th& 20th April 2018, until our genuine demands are met.
Yours,
Student