About the Department

The Department of Agriculture, Punjab was constituted a long ago during the British Regime in 1860.A.D. The first set of rules was framed in the year 1933. The Director of Agriculture was the Head of the Department and presently his headquarter is at Chandigarh. He is normally a highly qualified person in Agricultural sciences. He acts as Agricultural Advisor to the State of Punjab in addition to his responsibilities for planning organizing, execution and supervision of techniques of production programmes. The foremost duty is to increase agricultural production of the State and to help in contributing a major portion of food grains to the central pool, thus to make the country self-sufficient. The Director also helps in framing marketing policies. He advises the Govt. for agro-based industries also. The Director of Agriculture also monitors the input supplies i.e. seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, irrigation power, diesel, etc.
At the Director level there are four sections those are Administration, Engineering, Hydrogeology and Statistics all the supervised by the respective Joint Director in Administrating wing there are five Joint Directors 1. Extension and Training 2. High yielding varieties programme    3. Input section (Fertilizer with soil) 4. Plant Protection 5. Cash crops The Engineering with is controlled by one Joint Director that is Joint Director Engineering   Hydrogeology section also controlled one Joint Director.  The State  the Main supporting wing responsible for crops yield estimation and census work. There are two Joint Directors in this section. The section Incharge, Joint Director is further assisted by the officer of different level.
One Agricultural Marketing Section is working under the Joint Director of Agriculture, but has been given independent status.
For the development of sugarcane and sugar industry in the State, Cane Section under the administrative control of Cane commissioner has been created, who is responsible to the Director of Agriculture. There are 22 districts in the State which are further sub-divided into 145 blocks. The districts are supervised by the Chief Agricultural Officers who are cadre. They look after all the agricultural activities in the Districts.