Editor,
It is a matter of grave concern to sadly witness the untimely deaths of a number of technical officers employed in the Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Meghalaya who have since died either due to cancer, paralysis, kidney or other such terminal casualties!
Of late, the directorate of Agriculture has lost one of its dynamic lady officers who was reportedly suffering from dreaded cancer. My sincere condolences go to her bereaved family. It may be fairly inferred that the pre-eminent factor thereof being that these officers in question, especially those engaged at the village level, have willy-nilly to live in contact day in, day out with toxic agricultural chemicals like pesticide, insecticide and other such hazardous agro-substances intended to decimate agricultural pests and diseases but which are equally fatal to human beings, that may ultimately lead to incurable infirmity. It bears recall that on September 30th last, the Apex Court of the country has in its order banned Endosulfan, pesticide, for having wrought detrimental effects on people’s health and causing permanent physical deformity to victims who come in contact with such pernicious man-made chemicals.
All said and done, I, for one would like to see that our State government ensures that the uninhibited applications of such life threatening components be discreetly controlled, if not banned at an instant, thereby avoiding unnecessary loss of precious life of Agriculture officers who are unreservedly working for the sole progress of the State in order to achieve the target of food security, given that we are still lagging behind in food grain production.
Yours etc.,
Jerome Diengdoh,
Shillong-1
