BHUBANESWAR: The Forestry College of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) has been closed sine die. A notification in this regard was issued on Friday night after an academic meeting of the varsity and students have been asked to vacate the hostels within 24 hours.Protesting the ‘irrational’ decision of the University authorities, the forestry students on Saturday morning squatted in front of Raj Bhawan for several hours. Forestry students of the agriculture varsity were on an indefinite strike for the last 54 days seeking the BSc (Forestry) degree the minimum qualification for the range officer cadre of the department. However, with the State Government yet to look into their demands, the students are continuing their agitation. They have even threatened self-immolation if their demands are not met. The students had on April 12 met OUAT Vice-Chancellor D P Ray who assured them to take up the issue with Forest Minister Debi Parsad Mishra within 15 days. However, as no step was taken, they besieged the VC’s office on Friday morning. The demands include immediate recruitment of forestry graduates as forest ranger officers against one-third-backlog vacancies existing since 1994 and 50 per cent reservation for the post of assistant conservator of forests. “We got a list of vacancies in the department through Right to Information Act (RTI) and found that there were at least 628 vacancies. The last recruitment, 12 in total, were made in 1994. Since then, there has been no recruitment,” said Manoj Kumar Behera, a student. The students also claimed that they would be able to serve better than those selected from the general stream and trained for one or two years as this degree programme covers all aspects of forestry and the duration of the course is four years. Unfortunately, this is the situation here while states like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir have issued notification for 100 per cent reservation to forestry degree holders for appointment as range officers. VC Ray said the matter was being pursued with the government and will take time. “As the students are unwilling to attend classes, the varsity heads decided to close the college sine die. Letters have also been issued to the parents of students,” said Ray. He said he had been pursuing the matter with Debi Parsad Mishra and government higher-ups and all are in favour of the demands. “However, decisions are yet to be taken at the administrative level and the process takes time. In the last meeting, we had urged the students to wait for at least 15 days, but they are not willing to listen to us,” the VC further said. On the other hand, the students have decided to resort to peaceful dharna again from Sunday.
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