Agri Women Staff Complains to Women’s Panel

 Hyderabad: The digital crop survey continues to face hiccups with more than 50 per cent of the agriculture extension officers (AEOs) refusing to take part, citing failure of senior officials to keep their promises. Women AEOs have approached the Telangana Women’s Commission to air their grievances.

Some AEOs were suspended for their earlier refusal to take part in the survey. Following talks with senior officials, the AEOs agreed to take part in the Central government exercise. Despite that, the suspension issue was not resolved.

B. Raju Kumar of the AEO joint action committee, said: “We were promised that our suspensions will be revoked once we start the survey and update the senior officials on the practical problems we face on the field. The discussions took in the presence of principal secretary M. Raghunandan Rao and director of agriculture V. Gopi on October 23.”

“Contrary to assurances (about revoking suspension), they paid 58 AEOs for only 21 days last month. The AEOs should not have been asked to work when under suspension. Not paying them even after working is wrong,” Kumar said

They informed the suspension itself was done without seeking explanation. “Having suspended us for allegedly neglecting death screening for Rythu Bima beneficiaries, how did they revoke suspension for five AEOs? This shows that it was used as a ruse to punish us in the digital crop survey issue. The delay in reaching out to these beneficiaries is not intentional. Some of the land owners reside in urban areas or in Hyderabad and information about their death gets delayed. Sometimes there is no clarity on the jurisdiction of the death of the person with the police itself. All these lead to delay,” he said.

Of the 163 AEOs issued suspension orders only 58 of them were served these notices after protests the associations say.

Clarifying they are not averse to do the work, they say they are only seeking additional staff to help them. States like Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh are extending such help. The state has 1.55 crore acres of cropped land for which there are 2,600 AEOs in the state. Each AEO is normally assigned 5,000 acres but instances of having more than 17,000 acres are not uncommon. Of the 2,600 AEOs, 1,400 of them are women.

Explaining their difficulties, B. Kalyani, the convenor and a member of the AEOs JAC, said, “We have to walk to every acre of land to do this survey unlike the crop survey done earlier. The application accepts the option to upload a photo of the crop only after we update all the details of the farmer. Many of us recruited after 2017 are carrying and feeding mothers. How can we do this all alone in the field? Farmers leave the field once their work finishes. Safety is a concern for us. There is no signal connectivity in many areas once we go into the field.”

Some AEOs in Khammam and Kothagudem have 29,000 acres also under them. We could upload the earlier crop survey data after coming back to the office or at the gram panchayat office. There is no such possibility in this digital crop survey. As we were not given a patient hearing we met the women’s commission and sought her intervention in the issue, she added.

Commenting on their stand, agriculture director B. Gopi said the survey is going on smoothly.

“The principal secretary met the associations and asked them to complete at least 2,000 acres of the 5,000 acres assigned to each AEO. We have so far received 2.5 lakh photos from the field and got 27,000 of them today also. Only a small section is trying to resist the survey. It is important to implement crop insurance and other schemes in the state.”