The Hindu Business Line : ICAR headed for sleek look — Panel set up to `rightsize' administrative structure

IF the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, has his way, a major restructuring of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is on the cards, aimed at making the organisation less top-heavy and more responsive to the needs of the farming community in a changing domestic and international environment.

Mr Singh has constituted a committee, which has been asked to recommend ``an appropriate and rightsized administrative structure for ICAR at the headquarters (i.e New Delhi) and its various Institutes with the objective of establishing a more effective, precise and dynamic system of administration and management''.

The committee, which is to submit its report in two months' time, has also been given the task of suggesting ``how human resources in ICAR system can be developed to meet the growing challenges and how to use the available professional expertise in and outside the ICAR system for more practical, farmer-oriented and demand-driven research as per the expectations of the Indian farmers''.

The other terms of reference of the committee are ``to examine and suggest optimal ways of exercising administrative control and scientific monitoring its (ICAR's) institutions by the Department (i.e Ministry/headquarters) from the perspective of integrated functioning'' and ``to examine the linkage between ICAR and the State agricultural universities (SAUs) to make them financially viable and self-sufficient and to suggest an effective way of providing financial grants from ICAR to the universities''.

According to sources, the constitution of the committee (headed by Mr Hemendra Kumar, Special Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation) probably marks the beginning of a major shake-up and administrative streamlining of the country's premier farm research body.

This, they say, was an exercise ``long overdue'', more so given the amount of taxpayers' money spent annually on the organisation. For 2002-03, ICAR's total budget support has been pegged at Rs 1,498.80 crore, inclusive of a Plan outlay component of Rs 775 crore.

The ICAR system currently comprises a network of 47 national Institutes (including four deemed universities, including the Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the National Dairy Research Institute at Karnal, the Indian Veterinary Research Institute at Izatnagar in Uttar Pradesh and the Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai), 29 national research centres, 11 project directorates and four national bureaux. Besides, ICAR also provides grants worth around Rs 100 crore every year to SAUs, mainly towards funding and operating various all-India coordinated research projects.

The sources said the immediate focus of the present exercise would be to `rightsize' ICAR's rather bloated headquarters at Krishi Bhawan. The council is headed by a director-general (DG), who concurrently holds charge as secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE).

Under him, there are eight deputy-director generals or DDGs looking after crop sciences, animal sciences, horticulture, fisheries, natural resource management, agricultural engineering, education and agricultural engineering, respectively. The DDGs are in the rank and pay of Additional Secretary to the Government of India.

The DDGs, in turn, are assisted by as many as 36 joint secretary-level assistant director-generals or ADGs, of which five posts are currently lying vacant. Apart from these, there are 32 principal scientists, who again are equivalent to joint secretary rank.

``There is absolutely no logic in having such a top-heavy administrative structure, especially for a body that is meant to primarily serve farmers. We don't need so many agricultural scientists manning Krishi Bhawan and doing work of a purely administrative nature'', the sources pointed out.

Sceptics of Mr Ajit Singh's initiative, however, feel that the committee ought to have been headed not by a career bureacrat, but by someone of the eminence of Dr M.S. Swaminathan or Dr G.S. Khush, with adequate representation from stakeholders, mainly agri-business and progressive farmers' organisations. ``That would have carried more credibility'', they added.

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