Agriculture Extension Officers complain about work overload; demand appointment of VAAs

In their representation, the AEOs said each AEO in the State was covering 6,500 acres spread in five to six villages on average.

Sangareddy: Agriculture Extension Officers (AEOs) have demanded the State government to carry out the proposed digital crop survey only after appointing village agriculture assistants (VAA) on the lines of the appointments done in Andhra Pradesh.

While the State government was preparing to carry out a digital crop survey, the AEOs met the district agriculture officer (DA) Sangareddy K Shivaprasad on Tuesday urging him to take their issues to the notice of the State government.

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In their representation, the AEOs said each AEO in the State was covering 6,500 acres spread in five to six villages on average.

Since they were taking care of the implementation of Rythu Bandu, Rythu Bima, crop loan waiver, PM Kisan, enumeration of crop loss and compensation apart from carrying out the extension activities, the AEOs said carrying out the digital crop survey would be a tough task for them in the existing setup.

The AEOs said many of them were suffering from depression due to work overload. Women AEOs said carrying out a crop survey would be very challenging for them because they would find it difficult to roam around the agriculture fields alone.

They demanded the government to appoint VAAs for every 1,000 acres to make their job easy.