West Bengal Urged to Create Agricultural Engineering Directorate

West Bengal wants to make farming more modern and technology-based.

However, it does not have a separate government office focused on agricultural engineering.

Professor Ranajit Kumar Biswas says the state should create one quickly.

Engineers could help farmers use machinery, better irrigation, storage, cooling and automated systems.

This is important because many farms are very small and spread across the state.

West Bengal also grows large amounts of vegetables and other horticultural crops.

The state has fewer farm machinery centres than the national total when compared with its needs.

Better engineering could help reduce losses after crops are harvested.

Biswas says engineers would work alongside, rather than replace, farming and horticulture experts.