Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) Jammu , a State University established in 1999 and in respect of infrastructure including that of the members on the faculty as also almost all the top courses offered by it in the field of Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Fisheries, Veterinary and Animal Sciences or in other words, all the important subjects regarding agriculture supposed to be studied and researched about in this university, should find no ground in not coming up to the expectations of all concerned and keep its levels of performance continuously improving. In fact, any institution for that matter, must strive for showing an upper graph curve of its achievements – and therefore, why should SKUAST Jammu not be so ? It could be in imparting education and necessary training required in various disciplines of one of the most important fields of education and forming a top priority sector of our economy, rolling out quality and talented professionals for whom lot many opportunities of various hues are never found to be in short supply in the country and the like, warrant above the average performance of this university.
It is, however, dismaying to learn that the University has, as if ”vowed ” to register its decline on consistent basis and project only downswing in its performance as revealed by its further slippage from its previous positions . Going through the ranking of these universities in terms of performance by the All India Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) New Delhi for the year 2019, its position has gone down 13 notches from its previous ranking which must be a cause of concern to the management of the said university . What needs precisely to be done is to go in and find out specific areas where more needed to be done and still those areas, where innovative improvements had a lot of scope which could be brought about to look forward for bettering its ranking.
Times are changing and since competition in every field is a part of the institutional culture , students now increasingly do make a survey as to which university carried a better tag of its performance so that once rolled out carrying certificates and testimonials of such a reputed institution , could brighten and add up to their prospects of getting absorbed in competitive and responsible assignments with better career ladders to climb . After all, consistently showing a nose diving pattern right from the year 2016 till the latest ranking of 2019 does not auger well for the university in fields of academics and research work in particular, while on the other hand , despite added constraints of different hues, SKUAST Kashmir has been showing satisfactory performance and has accordingly improved its ranking. Not only that, it is learnt that many newly opened Agricultural Universities and allied institutes have performed better than SKUAST Jammu which is functioning since 1999.
New vistas of Agriculture areas in matters of new breeds and varieties of fruits , vegetables etc have great potential in various parts of Jammu region which remain not only untapped but lack quality expertise and professionalism which could have been taken care of by this University . In areas of dairy and dairy products, much remains to be done in Jammu region where not only is the shortage of milk and milk products prevalent but most of these items are sold adulterated to meet the growing demand. SKUAST Jammu can make a breakthrough in its research and expertise so as to ensure a turnaround in dairy and dairy products in this part of the UT. The University needs to take a cue from ICAR- National Dairy Research Institute Karnal which has repeated its ranking in the top, consecutively for the fourth year. Likewise, other Universities in our neighbouring State Punjab have improved their rankings. Hope, next ranking of this University of 2020 shall see not only frog leaps but big strides in its performance to claim a better place in its ranking.
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