D.P. Biradar, Vice-Chancellor, University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad, has said that an agriculture engineering college will start functioning on the agriculture college premises at Hittanahalli from the next academic year.
He told presspersons here on Monday that a proposal had been sent to the government. “The State has agriculture engineering colleges only in Raichur and Bangaluru now,” he said.
Claiming that the diploma course started by the university was becoming more popular among students and most of them were going back to agriculture after completing the course, Dr. Biradar said that the university was promoting the course more.
He said that while only 5 per cent of agriculture graduates had taken up agriculture after completing the course, 35 per cent of diploma student were going back to fields instead of looking for a job.
“With this, we are meeting the objective of encouraging the youth to take up agriculture. We have now reserved 5 per cent of seats in degree courses for diploma students,” Dr. Biradar said.
He said that the quota for children of farmers had been increased from 25 per cent to 40 per cent in degree courses in agriculture colleges. The objective was to attract more students from rural areas to go for agriculture.
Dr. Biradar said that the university had started a jowar seed processing unit at the agriculture college here to supply quality seeds to farmers.
Silver jubilee
The agriculture college in Vijayapura will celebrate its silver jubilee on December 22 and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would inaugurate the programme.
The college was established in 1990 when the late S. Bangarappa was the Chief Minister. “We are happy to celebrate 25 years of the agriculture college in drought-prone Vijayapura district,” Dr. Biradar said.
