The Hindu Business Line : Higher pay mooted for plantation research scientists

The proposal spells out how various research institutes of the Commodity Boards could be put on par with those working under the Indian Council for Agricultural Research.

G. Srinivasan

New Delhi, May 1 In a major bid to boost production and productivity in the plantation sector, the Department of Commerce has initiated a serious exercise to confer higher salaries on scientists working in plantation research bodies. This is to ensure the efficacy of commercialisation of laboratory ideas into practice and cash in on the current global boom in commodity prices.

Official sources told Business Line here that the department has drawn up a Cabinet note spelling out in great detail how the various research institutes of the Commodity Boards could be put on par with the research institutes currently working under the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), veritably in every respect.

The proposal is to declare the Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII) under the Rubber Board, Kottayam; Central Coffee Research Institute (CCRI), Balehanur under the Coffee Board, Bangalore; Indian Cardamom Research Institute (ICRI), Myladumpara; Biotechnology Laboratory and Quality Evaluation Laboratory of the Spices Board, Cochin; and Research Division of Tea Board, Kolkata on par with ICAR Research Institutes in every respect.

Rubber clone

The idea is to make the research outfit a hub for integrated development of the plantation sector by providing the requisite pay and perks to scientists involved in the task.

The sources point out that a single clone of rubber, viz., RRII 105 of the RRII, remains the highest yielding clone in the world. Largescale cultivation of this flagship clone has rendered India number one in the world in so far as productivity of natural rubber goes, despite adverse agro-climatic conditions in comparison to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The recent clones, namely RRII 414 and RRII 430, have 20 per cent more production potential than RRII 105. The success of the Indian natural rubber plantation industry was no way less significant than the green revolution, they said.

Similarly, the sources said, the CCRI had been in the vanguard in adopting various eco-friendly integrated pest management and integrated disease management strategies for coffee production. A new variety released on December 18, 2007, viz ‘Chandragiri’, which has been evolved from original stock of ‘Sarchimor’ by CCRI, shows about 95 per cent resistance to the disease in the field.

Taking initiative

The move to beef up the various Commodity Board research institutes through better salary and other perks stems from the initiative of the Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, soon after he took charge a couple of years ago, the sources said, adding that the Flexible Complementing Scheme (FCS) applicable to the scientists of the Commodity Boards had not brought the desired results.

When contacted, Mr Ramesh said: “In the era of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG), it has been seen that the young scientists are leaving government jobs due to better opportunities in the private sector. Hence it is crucial to attract and retain brilliant young scientists in the R&D institutes of the Commodity Boards for scaling new peaks in the plantation sector.

“This is also part of our effort to make the plantation sector research-driven rather than subsidy-driven. We need to strengthen science and technology for tea, coffee, spices and cashew. One good success story we have is rubber but this needs to be replicated in other commercial crops too”.

Support triggers

Mr Ramesh said he got overwhelming support from scientists Dr M.S. Swaminathan and Dr C.N.R. Rao, Chairman, Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, for the move to upgrade the payscale of scientists in the plantation industry.

There was anomaly in the salary and service conditions of scientists working in plantation crops compared with those working in institutes under ICAR and CSIR, the sources said.

Therefore, the department was seeking through a note to the Cabinet the need to adopt four-tier pay scale for the scientists of the Commodity Boards and also to adopt the Recruitment Rules of the scientists of the ICAR research institutes in the various plantation research institutes.

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