Meeting with Mr. Commissioner for support in organizing a Shodhytra.......

I got leave from college to attend a meeting with commissioner of Aligarh Zone. The meeting was related to the agriculture department and all other related to agriculture in all four districts coming under Aligarh Zone. I was invited to attend the meeting by Deputy Director Agriculture of Aligarh who heads the whole agriculture department in Aligarh District. Meeting was scheduled to start at 2:30 PM, so I reached at commissioner’s office at 2: 15 PM. After few minute official from different departments in different districts walked into the conference room. Suddenly Deputy Director Agriculture, Aligarh Dr. Omveer Singh came and we entered the conference room together. Officials from agriculture, horticulture, Gramin Bank, irrigation etc departments were there to face Mr. Commissioner, who is the administrator for all four districts in Aligarh zone. All these officers were having some files with them; they were reading their files and all. There was nervousness on every face except few farmers; those officers were worried about the questions from Mr. Commissioner.
I was invited to discuss about my work in the region and next steps. Few days back I discussed with Deputy Director about my planning about organizing a Shodhyatra in the District. I also asked him for help and I am also concerned about the help from few other departments e.g. Gram Panchayat, Education dept. etc. I went to attend the meeting to raise the support of Mr. Commissioner, so I can get the support of all departments in the region.
At around 3:30 PM, Mr. Commissioner entered the room and everybody present in the room gave him respect by standing up on own place. Finally meeting started with irrigational problems faced by the farmers in all four districts. One by one representatives from all departments in all four districts gave their report about the growth and targets; somehow any of these departments had not completed its target for one reason or the other.
After a hectic season of targets and achievements, a scientist from Tata Chemicals addressed the conference. He shared about the launch of some crop focused chemical fertilizers, he discussed about the benefits of these fertilizers but he didn’t address about the harms which can be caused by these chemicals to the soil and environment as those fertilizers are chemical ones.
He was just to sit after his lecture, I asked him about the kind of harms caused by the chemical fertilizers and also about the expected harms will be caused by new crop focused fertilizers. He said, “If any farmer uses beyond the standards, chemical fertilizers are very harmful for soil and environment”. Scientist from Tata chemicals suggested about the standards of using chemicals on field, some others from few other chemical companies also favored him. But if a farmer is cultivating any crop on his fields, he has to increase the amount of chemical fertilizer for same results. Every year farmers increase the amount of fertilizer used in agriculture, if they don’t they don’t get proper outcome. So, how can we go with the standards, if farmers follow standards they will not get good results. In any case they have to cross the standards. Farmers present in the conference room agreed with my argument. I asked those representatives of chemical companies, “Is it the policy or strategy of your companies to produce such products by which your sales can be raised”? This time this scientist or representative of one chemical company was beating around the bush because he didn’t have any favorable answer. This debate ended by the interruption of Deputy Director Agriculture, Aligarh.
Now it was my turn to discuss my work and my purpose of being there. I introduced myself and my organization SRISTI and its ideology. I introduced the concept of Shodhyatra, and also discussed about activities which we do in the Shodhyatra. I shared my planning about organizing a Shodhyatra, I asked Mr. Commissioner for his support for my operations in the region. With few questions, finally He got convinced with the concept and agreed to provide support. His agreement was like an order to all departments present in the conference room. Meeting ended after few other discussions related to agriculture at around 5:30 PM.
After meeting, I was surrounded by some people, some officers from other districts asked me about my further planning to enter their districts. Some farmers also came to me and discussed some of their problems caused by chemicals and asked for the solution.