The third convocation of Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) is held here on Saturday at University Auditorium, Rajendranagar Hyderabad. Dr.S.Ayyappan, Chancellor of Central Agril.University, Imphal & Former Director General, ICAR, New Delhi has attended as chief guest and delivered the third convocational address. In his convocational address he appreciated the schemes initiated by state government of Telangana towards ensuring the agriculture more profitable for farming community are becoming model for entire country. He appreciated the efforts of PJTSAU in developing the high yielding varieties seeds, water saving technologies and agronomic practices to suit to the delayed monsoon and drought conditions of Telangana state. He emphasized on new agriculture to be science based, technology-led, ecologically sustainable and economically stable to make farming practice professional as enterprise. A paradigm shift from starch to protein, primary agriculture to secondary agriculture to enhance the farm income is need of the hour he added. He stated that for small farmers, farm equipments of low cost, light weight, multi-purpose, gender friendly, reducing drudgery are to be provided. Dr. Ayyappan suggested that to utilise the knowledge based agriculture with farming future in cyber –physical systems, real time cross value chain , smart gadgets and applications ,start – ups , Agri-incubators and Agri-preneurs, Agri-skills and ICTs is being projected to present the potentials of new agriculture. He also emphasized the need of several tools and techniques like Big data analysis, IoT in farming, SAGs, Image processing , Artificial Intelligence ,Deep/Machine learning, Block chain technology, sensors and Robotics could be deployed for smart farming that would need a strong interface between different domains and stake holders. Dr Ayyappan appealed the new graduates of PJTSAU to have Curiosity, Creativity and Connectivity to serve the farming community better.
Dr. V.Praveen Rao, Vice chancellor, PJTSAU has highlighted the achievements in Teaching, Research and Extension fields for the year 2017-18 like implementation of Vth deans committee recommendation for U.G Courses, NSS/NCC activities Students placements, national level recognition to PJTSAU in Agriculture, Engineering, Home science and Library Science disciplines. He also mentioned about MOUs signed between National and International institutes for collaboration in Teaching, Research and Extension. In this convocation 592 U.G and 144 PG/Ph.D students are awarded degrees.9 PG/Ph.D students and 17 UG students are warded gold medals for their outstanding performance in academics and extracurricular activities. In this convocation Registrar Dr.S.Sudheer Kumar, Members of board of management, Academic council of PJTSAU, Former Vice chancellors, Deans and Directors, Students and Faculty members participated.