The Union Cabinet’s decision to fill up vacancies for research and technical personnel and lifting of cuts in technical posts in various commodity boards including Coffee Board would provide a “new direction and dimension” to the development activities of these boards, Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said here on Saturday.

The exemption from Annual Direct Recruitment Plan for technical posts numbering 935 in the commodity boards like Coffee Board, Tea Board, Rubber Board, Spices Board, Marine Product Export Development Authority and Export Promotion Council and permission to fill up 246 technical vacancies through direct method would help them to focus on productivity and extension services, he said.

Disparity in pay
Mr Jairam Ramesh conceded currently there is disparity in pay scale of  a Research Officer in Coffee Research Institute in Karnataka and  his counterpart in Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), who is getting higher remuneration for same type of job.

Now the effort is to put the scientists and research fellows’ salary in commodity boards with that of technical personnel of IARI so as to give spur to their work for augmenting production through sustained jump in productivity, he added.

“This would go a long way in making these organisations from being subsidy-oriented to research-oriented in the coming years,” Mr Ramesh said.