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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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Subject: Extension Education × End date: 2023 × Start date: 2023 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Participation of rural women in tea cultivation: A study of Kangra District (Himachal Pradesh)
    (RPCAU, Pusa, 2023) SHARMA, DAMINI; Prakash, Satya
    India makes one of finest tea around the world. Globally, second largest producer of tea is India with the total of 6.37 lakh ha of tea cultivated area (tea board). India is also one of top consumers of tea. 80% of teas grown in India are consumed by domestic population. . Tea is grown in states like Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura. Some districts of Himachal Pradesh also contribute to the traditional tea growing states. Women labours and their involvement in the tea plantation is gaining attention as majority of sector is dominated by women itself. Planting, plucking, picking, grading, skiffing, storage and packing are the activities perform by rural women in tea farms. Majority of work in tea farms are done by women because it patience and efficiency which are done more precisely by women. This is one of main reasons of dominance of female work forces in Kangra tea farms. One of the strengths of Kangra tea is the taste and its organic, orthodox processing and high quality tea. Working as tea labourers are the best alternative for rural women to increase the living standards of women. By keeping in view the above facts, my attempt was to study is there any increase in the empowerment of rural women after engaging so much in the farms. Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district, which is home to the majority of the state's tea farms, served as the focus of a study on the effects of the tea farming sector on the socio economic position of rural women. An interview schedule was used to gather the pertinent data, which was then tabulated and analysed using the appropriate analytical techniques. 120 women tea labourer respondents from four major tea estates in Palampur block and Baijnath block of Kangra district were chosen at random for the study. It is concluded from the research that most of the respondent were from the middle age group (36-50 years and maximum of the respondents were educated till the secondary level, none of the respondents fell into the category who had received college education. We infer that maximum respondents had joint families. The number of children is an important factor affecting women labour participation. Most of women have two children. The findings indicate that most of women fell in the category of respondents who had medium level of social participation. Most of women had medium level of farming experience i.e. 4-8 years. On analyzing the contents we can deduce that bulk of the respondents had medium scientific orientation. We infer that maximum respondents were married. Large portion of the respondents had adopted only tea farming as their primary occupation leaving the rest of 5% who practiced tea farming and some other activities to obtain additional income. All the respondents (100%) in the locale of the study belonged to the category of farmers with marginal land holdings. It was seen that none of them had land more than 2.5 acres. We can deduce that bulk of the respondents had medium level of livestock holding mostly cow. It can be seen that maximal percentage of women respondents had medium income (50272 to 809580). Majority of the respondents, women displayed medium level towards mass media exposure. Maximum of the responding participants had medium extension contact. Majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of risk orientation. Majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of economic motivation. Majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of achievement motivation. From the research finding , we can say that maximum women participation is seen in intercultural activities followed by harvest and post harvest activities. Cultivation activities has moderate level of participation and the lowest in the list are management activities and decision making activities with lowest participation. From the research findings overall participation majority of respondent had medium level of overall participation. In conclusion, we can say that according to findings maximum women empowerment is seen in decision making empowerment followed by social empowerment. Economic empowerment got medium level of empowerment and the lowest in the list are psychological empowerment and political empowerment with lowest empowerment amongst women. According to the overall empowerment of rural women, majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of overall empowerment.