TNAU students fast continues
Students of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University on a fast inside the University Campus on Friday demanding talks on their 11-point charter.The sit-in fast of the students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University entered the second day on Friday. Three woman students and two male students who fainted were hospitalised.The fast is a fallout of the failure of talks that students and unemployed farm graduates had with the Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam on December 5. The students have been demanding employment for 12,000-odd graduates. They had been on a fast earlier in front of all agricultural colleges across the State.“The talks were not satisfactory and we are unhappy that the Minister did not make any concrete promises. We have started this fast-unto-death demanding the immediate intervention of the Chief Minister to initiate tripartite talks among Government officials, unemployed graduates and the students,” said V.T. Rajadurai, a student representative.The students, in their memorandum, had presented an 11-point charter of demands.Out of the 12,000 graduates from the disciplines of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, agricultural engineering and agricultural technology, 7,040 had registered with the employment exchange.
In the last 17 years, the State Government had provided only 416 posts of agriculture officers and 82 vacancies of agriculture teachers. Various announcements by the Agriculture Minister in terms of employment opportunities merely remained announcements, they lamented. The farm graduates also had grouse about promotions that were given against norms.They urged that at least 2,000 vacancies could be filled on the basis of employment registration seniority.Since the university had declared an indefinite closure and asked the students to vacate the hostels, students were found squatting in the university grounds with their belongings. Some 150 students at the Forest College and Research Institute, Mettupalayam, were also on a fast at their college premises.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in a release has urged the Chief Minister to directly intervene to bring an end to the protest fast of the students.Vice-Chancellor C. Ramasamy said that the Agricultural Department was reorganising itself and it would take some time to create and fill up the vacancies.
